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William Jennings Bryan 



A CONCISE BUT COMPLETE STORY OF 
HIS LIFE AND SERVICES 



BY/ 



HARVEY E. NEWBRANCH 



LINCOLN, NEBRASKA 

THE UNIVERSIT-V PUBLISHING CO. 

1900 



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CopyrighUd, i^oo, by Harvey E. Newbranch. All rights reserved. 



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rillZ KUAVE AND PATRIOTIC LEADER 



OF 



AN HONEST AND INTELLIGENT ELECTORATE 



"CCltlliam Jennings JBr^gan 



O F 



NEBRASKA 



PREFACE 

The author of this little volume, in giving it to the 
reading public, feels called on for a few words by way 
of explanation and apology. 

The book is written because there seems to be a 
field for it. Within the last few months hundreds of 
thousands of American citizens have come to see 
William Jennings Bryan in a new light. As a result, 
while they no longer believe him a demagogue, some 
still hesitate to accept him as a statesman. While 
they have ceased to denounce him as an anarchist, 
some are slow to realize that he stands with Andrew 
Jackson and Abraham Lincoln as one of the great 
conservators of American institutions. 

Especially for the benefit of this class of his fellow 
citizens this little ^^ife" of Mr. Bryan is published. 
For it is claimed no literary merit other than a con- 
scientious attempt at clearness, and no historical ex- 
cellence save a strict adherence to the truth in the 
statement of facts. The work has had to be hurriedly 
done and at irregular intervals, and the one object 
aimed at has been to acquaint the reader with Mr. 
Bryan's character through a narration of his life 
work. 

It is candidly admitted that the book is written in 
a friendly and sympathetic vein. To the author's 
thinking Mr. Bryan's personality is one of the most 



PREFACE 

beautiful and well-rounded in x^morican history, and 
his noble characteristics are dwelt on only because 
they exist and deserve to be understood. 

To many of Mr. Bryants old-time friends in Lincoln 
the author is under obligations for valuable assist- 
ance. Among these may be especially mentioned Mr. 
Harry T. Dobbins, Judge J. H. Broady, Mr. T. S. Al- 
len, and Mr. W. F. Schwind. Others have contributed 
to a greater or less degree, and to all due thanks and 
acknowledgements are hereby rendered. 

HARVF.Y E. NEWBEANCH. 

Lincoln, Neb., August 29, 1900. 



CONTENTS 

' Introductory 5 

Earlv Life 9 

In Congress 19 

The Tariff >^,_.,-.. 30 

The Rise of the Silver Issue 40 

The Presidential Candidate 53 

New Issues 68 

Renomination 94 

The Indianapolis Speech 114 

Bryan : the Man 148 

Home Life 164 



INTRODUCTORY 

About the life and services of William Jennings 
Bryan will be centered the labors of those who, in 
future time, shall contribute to the pages of history 
the story of American statescraft and political tend- 
encies of the dying days of the nineteenth century 
and the opening decade of the twentieth. The his- 
torian who has to do with Bryan and his times will 
deal not only with one of the most momentous and im- 
portant periods of American history, but with one 
of the most remarkable and interesting characters 
whose name adorns its pages. 

It is not generally while the battle of ideas and 
ideals is on, it is but rarely during the developing 
period of great political and social movements, that 
their relative and ultimate importance may be 
judged; and it is as seldom, during the lifetime of a 
public man, whose name is identified and whose ser- 
vices are associated with the great issues which con- 
stitute the line of demarcation in the field of political 
thought, that his true character, his strength, and 
his weaknesses, may be appreciated or understood. 

In the study of man and of history a proper sense 
of perspective is as all-essential as in the limner^s 
art. The warrior who, with heart aflame, strives on 
a great battlefield, can know but little of the terrible 
grandeur of the whole, and still less of the import of 



6 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

the movements of battalions, regiments, and corps. 
It remains for him who, from an eminence of distance 
or of time, surveys impartially the entire field, to 
comprehend its sublimities and horrors, and to appre- 
ciate the full significance of its waging and its out- 
come. And even so, of necessity, it is most difficult 
for us who live in the American republic, at this 
century's sunset, to be able or even willing rightly to 
appreciate the full import of movements in the ad- 
vancement or retarding of which each bears howso- 
ever humble a part. Too frequently in politics, as in 
battle, men do fiercely strive with blinded eyes and 
deafened ears, and they sometimes wildly strike at 
him who is their friend. 

And yet there are many things in the life of a 
public man which his neighbors and associates can 
not fail of knowing, and which, when interpreted, 
permit his contemporaries to estimate the quality of 
his character, even though they may not know the 
full value of his public services. In every man, of 
whatever station, there are elements and traits which 
prominently stand forth. These, with such things 
as he has done and the words which he has spoken, 
constitute the material from which we may form our 
concepts of his worth. 

In William Jennings Bryan are certain traits so 
prominent and unmistakable that he who runs may 
read. They have been well revealed, in few words, 
by Judge Edgar Howard, of Papillion, Neb. In a 
speech delivered before the Jacksonian Club of 
Omaha, on July 15, 1900, Judge Howard said : 



INTRODUCTORY 7 

"Eeverently I say it, that while I do not worship 
the man, I do worship those traits in him that, as I 
read the book, stand unparalleled in politics. There 
is not a man of you here or anywhere to be found who 
has the nerve to speak a profane or vulgar word in 
the presence of our candidate for President. Nor 
does a man dare suggest a move on the political 
chess-board that honor will not approve. He bright- 
ens and betters all those who come in contact with 
him, no matter who they be. Then why should we 
not go before the world and preach this man — the 
personification of purity, clean in all things — as well 
as his principles?" 

In this little volume it will be attempted to tell 
briefly the story of this American's life and the move- 
ments with which he has been associated. The tale 
must be hurriedly moulded into form, and we fear its 
rough lines and its crudities will be all too apparent. 
And yet, withal, it will be the result of sincere en- 
deavor to aid his fellow-citizens to know^ William 
Jennings Bryan even as he is. It is, we believe, a 
laudable design, however poorly executed. For here, 
on the farther side of the brown and swift Missouri, 
there dwells a man of virile and rugged qualities, 
typically American and truly Western, the story of 
whose life is a wondrous inspiration to every citizen 
of the Republic and a monument to the uplifting force 
of right living and high ideals. For it tells that even 
in the politics of to-day, honeycombed with cant, 
hypocrisy, and insincerity, absolute honesty of mo- 
tive and candor of statement is still no bar to the 



8 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

truest leadership and the highest advancement. It 
tells further of the marvelous opportunities of 
humble American citizenship, demonstrating once 
more, as in Abraham Lincoln's time, that to the man 
of conscience, brains, and courage, the highest walks 
of life are open ; to which neither poverty nor obscur- 
ity is a bar. And finally it tells of the great potential 
power of the idea, unaided and even bitterly opposed, 
when forcefully and sincerely stated, to win its way 
to the hearts of humankind. 

And so it is that to such as will honestly study 
William Jennings Bryan's career, and learn the 
lesson that it teaches, must come hope and inspiration 
and promise of the dawn. For whether he ever hold 
high political office or not; whether or not, in the 
crucible of time, his political faith prove true or 
prove fallacious; his life still teaches that courage 
and plain honesty may win for a public man such 
following and support, such exalted place in the 
hearts of his countrymen, as has never yet rewarded 
the tricks and wiles of even the most brilliant of 
opportunists. 



EARLY LIFE 

William Bryan, the great-grandfather of the presi- 
dential nominee, the first of the Bryans known to the 
present generation, lived in Culpepper county, Va. 
In his family there were three children. One of these, 
John Bryan, was the grandfather of William 
Jennings Bryan. In 1807 John married Nancy 
Lillard. To this couple ten children were born. One 
of these was Silas L. Bryan, the father of William 
Jennings Bryan. 

He was born in Sperryyille, Culpepper county, Va., 
in 1822. In 1834 he came west, working his way 
through the public schools, finally entering McKen- 
dree College, at Lebanon, 111., and graduating with 
honors in 1849. After graduating, he studied law, 
was admitted to the bar, and began his practice in 
Salem, Marion county, 111. In 1852 he was married to 
Mariah Elizabeth Jennings. In 1860, he was elected 
to the circuit bench, where he served twelve years. In 
1872 he was nominated for Congress on the Demo- 
cratic ticket, receiving the endorsement of the Green- 
back party. He died March 30, 1880, and was buried 
in the cemetery of his much beloved town, Salem. 

The union of Silas Bryan and Mariah Jennings 
was blessed on March 19j 1860, by the birth of 
William Jennings Bryan, twice the Democratic 
nominee for President of the United States. 



10 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

When William Jennings Bryan was six years old, 
his parents moved to their farm in the vicinity of 
Salem. Until he was ten years of age his parents 
taught him at home, hoping thus to mould his young 
mind to better advantage. At ten years of age 
William entered the public schools of Salem. There 
he attended until he was fifteen, when he entered 
Wliipple academy, Jacksonville, 111., in the fall of 
1875. Two years later he entered Illinois College, 
and with this step a new life began. 

His parents wished him to take a classical course 
with its Latin, Greek, mathematics, and geometry. 
This he did. He was, too, an earnest student of po- 
litical economy. During his first year at the acad- 
emy, he delivered Patrick Henry's masterpiece, and 
was ranked well down toward the "foot.'' Again in 
the second year, nothing daunted by his failure to 
be at the "head," he selected "The Palmetto and the 
Pine" as his subject. This time he was third, with 
a large number following. Later in his second year 
he delivered "Bernado del Carpio," and gained second 
prize. In his sophomore and junior years, his essays 
upon "Labor" and "Individual Powers" were each 
awarded first prize. The winning of the junior prize 
entitled him to represent Illionis College in the inter- 

* 

collegiate oratorical contest, which was held at Gales- 
burg, 111., in the fall of 1880. His oration was upon 
"Justice," which received the second prize of fifty 
dollars. At the time of graduation, he was elected 
class orator, and delivered the valedictory.. 
It was here, in his junior year that he first met his 



EAKLY LIFE 11 

wife, Miss Marj Baird, of Perry, 111., and she, speak- 
ing of her first impression, says, "I saw him first in 
the parlors of the young ladies' school which I at- 
tended in Jacksonville. He entered the room with 
several other students, was taller than the rest, and 
attracted my attention at once. His face was pale 
and thin; a ijair of keen, dark eyes looked out from 
beneath heavy eyebrows ; his nose was prominent — too 
large to look well, I thought; a broad, thin-lipped 
mouth and a square chin completed the contour of his 
face. I noted particularly his hair and smile. The 
former, black in color, fine in quality, and parted 
distressingly straight. In later years his smile has 
been the subject of considerable comment. Upon one 
occasion a heartless observer was heard to remark, 
^That man can w^hisper in his own ear,' but this was 
cruel exaggeration." 

The graduating exercises of Illinois College were 
in June, 1881. The valedictory is given below, not 
because it possesses great merit, but in order to show 
his style and the turn of his mind at the time. 

"Beloved instructors, it is character not less than 
intellect that you have striven to develop. As we 
stand at the end of our college course, and turn our 
eyes toward the scenes forever past, as our memories 
linger on the words of wisdom which have fallen from 
your lips, w^e are more and more deeply impressed 
with the true conception of duty which you have ever 
shown. You have sought not to trim the lamp of 
genius until the light of morality is paled by its 
dazzling brilliance, but to encourage and strengthen 



12 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

both. These days are over. No longer shall we 
listen to your warning voices, no more meet you in 
these familiar classrooms, yet on our hearts ^deeply 
has sunk the lesson' you have given, and it shall not 
soon depart. 

"We thank you for your kind and watchful care, 
and shall ever cherish your teachings with that de- 
votion which sincere gratitude inspires. 

"It is fitting that we express to you also, honored 
trustees, our gratitude for the privileges which you 
have permitted us to enjoy. 

"The name of the institution whose interest you 
guard will ever be dear to us as the schoolroom, to 
whose influence we shall trace whatever success com- 
ing years may bring. 

"Dear classmates, my lips refuse to bid you a last 
good-bye; we have so long been joined together in a 
community of aims and interests; so often met and 
mingled our thoughts in confidential friendship; so 
often planned and worked together, that it seems like 
rending asunder the very tissues of a heart to sepa- 
rate us now. 

"But this long and happy association is at an end, 
and now as we go forth in sorrow, as each one must, 
to begin alone the work which lies before us, let us 
encourage each other with strengthening words. 

"Success is brought by continued labor and con- 
tinned watchfulness. We must struggle on, not for 
one moment hesitate, nor take one backward step ; for 
in the language of the poet : 




MRS. BRYAN 



EARLY LIFE 13 

*The gates of hell are open night and day, 
Smooth the descent and easy is the way ; 
But to return and view the cheerful skies, 
In this, the past and mighty labor lies.' 

We launch our vessels upon the uncertain sea of life 
alone, yet not alone, for around us are friends who 
anxiously and prayerfully watch our course. They 
will rejoice if we arrive safely at our respective 
havens, or weep with bitter tears if, one by one, our 
weather-beaten barks are lost forever in the surges 
of the deep. 

"We have esteemed each other, loved each other, 
and now must with each other part. God grant that 
we may all so live as to meet in the better world, 
where parting is unknown. 

"Halls of learning, fond Alma Mater, farewell. 
We turn to take our 4ast, long, lingering look' at the 
receding walls. We leave thee now to be ushered 
out into the varied duties of an active life. 

"However high our names may be inscribed upon 
the gilded scroll of fame, to thee we all the honor give, 
to thee all the praises bring. And when, in after 
years, w^e're wearied by the bustle of the busy world, 
our hearts will often long to turn and seek repose 
beneath thy sheltering shade." 

In September, 1881, William Jennings Bryan en- 
tered the Union College of Law at Chicago. Out of 
school hours his time was spent- in the office of ex- 
Senator Lyman Trumbull, who had been a great 
friend of young Bryan's father. His vacation and 
summer months were spent on the farm, and it was 



14 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

these years of rugged, outdoor life which gave to his 
manhood that vigor, stability, and splendid physique 
so helpful to him in his life as a student and in his 
work since he has left college. 

Mr. Bryan stood well in the law school, taking an 
especial interest in constitutional law. He was also 
connected with the debating society of the college 
and took an active part in its meetings. 

At the age of twenty-three Mr. Bryan finished a 
collegiate course and started in life for himself, leav- 
ing the farm, robust and ambitious, to grow in the 
'^knowledge of his profession. His parents were de- 
vout Christians and members of the Baptist Church. 
So Mr. Bryan was early taught those principles of 
right and wrong, justice, equality, and the advan- 
tages of a pure life. His father's example convinced 
him that the old saying that "no honest man can be- 
come a lawyer" was a myth and a mistake. And on 
July 4, 1883, William Jennings Bryan began the 
practice of his profession in Jacksonville, 111. 

Stocked with a liberal education, a conscience void 
of offense, a character unsullied, and an ambition to 
know the law, and to apply this knowledge for the 
benefit of the people, he began at the very bottom of 
the ladder. The drudgery and disappointments, the 
hardships and jokes common to a beginner without 
means and alone, in competition with men of gray 
hairs and wisdom that come from years of toil and 
practice, was the portion of Mr. Bryan. But he was 
a courageous man; Napoleon-like he knew no such 
word as fail, and with that force and enthusiasm so 



EARLY LIFE 15 

characteristic of the man, he labored on, believing 
that each disappointment contained its lesson, and 
that every hardship endured had its counterpart in 
a triumph. His early practice was not unlike that of 
other beginners, taking such cases as usually come to 
the young lawyer. 

At the close of the first year, and during the fall 
of 1884, his income was such that he could support a 
wife; a modest home was planned and built, and in 
October, 1884, he was married. During the next 
three years he lived comfortably, though econom- 
ically, and laid by a small amount. Politics lost none 
of its charms, and each campaign found Mr. Bryan 
speaking, usually in his own county. 
/" Three years after graduation he attended the com- 
mencement at Illinois College, delivered the Master's 
oration, and received the degree, his subject being 
^jf^merican Citizenship." From that time until he 
entered Congress in 1891, his only support for him- 
self and his wife was from his profession. Mr. Bryan 
continued in a growing practice of law in Jackson- 
ville until October, 1887. In July of that year, while 
on a western trip, he passed through Lincoln, Neb., 
to visit friends, and in two days was so impressed 
with the city and its possibilities that he disposed of 
his business in Jacksonville, and located in Lincoln. 
Political ambitions did not enter into this change, 
as the city, county, and state were strongly Republi- 
can. Mr. Bryan began his lot as a lawyer in Lincoln 
by forming a partnership, the style of the firm being 
"Talbot & Bryan." He at once applied himself vigor- 



16 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

ously to the details of the practice in his new field, 
and was soon recognized as a lawyer of unusual 
strength. 

* In the few years of practice at the bar of Lincoln 
before he was elected to Congress, Mr. Bryan became 
somewhat celebrated as the champion of the anti- 
sugar-bounty doctrine, and as the pleader for equal 
rights, under the law, for all classes of men. In the 
spring of 1896, the city proposed to issue $500,000 of 
its refunding bonds in gold. A number of citizens 
believing such a contract unjust to the tax-payers, 
consulted Mr. Bryan and secured his services in their 
behalf. Without compensation, he at once devoted 
his energies to restrain the city of Lincoln from issu- 
ing and selling such bonds. A temporary restraining 
order was issued by the court, and after a vigorous 
contest an injunction against the city, preventing 
such contract, was granted. In these cases was shown 
Mr. Bryan's genuine interest in public matters, and in 
the general welfare of the people. Aside from many 
of these cases involving public interest, his work as a 
lawyer w^as the usual practice of the profession. 

Mr. Bryan is a man of great physical endurance. 
As a lawyer as well as a legislator, he is a man of 
great deliberation. Before acting, he believes in being 
fully advised as to the subject upon which he is to 
act. He was never known to champion a cause, accept 
a case, or make a statement to a jury or elsewhere 
that did not present the honest conviction of his mind, 
always having a sincere belief in the correctness of 



EARLY LIFE 17 

the position assumed. In explaining a proposition of 
law, he seeks the reason for the law, which he is al- 
ways able to present with peculiar clearness. / 

In his method of argument he is never emotional, 
but makes strong applications of law^ and fact by the 
statement of his case and proof, without any effort at 
embellishment or oratory. His ability to crowd a 
great deal in a few words and sentences is very 
marked. The weakness of his opponents he easily de- 
tects, and readily points out the fallacy. Mr. Bryan 
is an ardent believer in the American jury system. 
When in Congress, he introduced a bill providing that 
a verdict agreed to by three-fourths of the members 
of a jury should be a verdict of the jury in civil cases, 
and he made an argument before the Congressional 
Judiciary Committee in its support, f 

"Mr. Bryan did not distinguish himself as a 
lawyer.'^ Those who thus complain should consider 
that he entered the practice at the age of twenty-three, 
and left it at thirty, and in that period began twice, 
and twice became more than self-supporting. He has 
not had the time and opportunity in which to estab- 
lish the reputation at the bar which gives to many 
American jurists the illustrious positions which they 
occupy. However, at the time of his election to Con- 
gress, his practice was in a thriving condition and 
fully equal to that of any man of his age in the city. 

Whatever may be said of Mr. Bryan by friend or 
foe, it must be conceded that his convictions control 
his actions on all questions, either as a lawyer or as 



18 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

a public man, and when employed in a case involving 
great interests, he would, without question, acquit 
himself with that distinction which has characterized 
him as a leader in public affairs. 



IN CONGRESS 

r Mr. Bryan's first political speech of importance 
was made at Seward in the spring of 1888. At that 
time Lincoln was known to be as strong as the rock of 
Gibraltar in the Republican faith. On this occasion 
of his first public appearance as a political orator in 
Nebraska, he drew men to him by the power of the 
orator, and held them there in subsequent years by 
the virtue of the man. His extraordinary popularity 
with the masses of his followers was universally ac- 
knowledged. After his first few speeches, it did not 
take long for his reputation to spread over the state, 
and when he was elected as a delegate from Lancaster 
count}^ to the Democratic State convention in 1888 
he was in great demand. The sources of this popu- 
larity, though less clear, were of profound significance, 
being only in part personal. In fact, it seemed to be 
this man's fortune to embody a fresh democratic im- 
pulse, which in time would make him the leader of a 
new democratic movement. 

The reports as to Mr. Bryan's first speech in the 
convention, say in part : ^'Mr. Bryan, of Lancaster 
county, was then called. He came forward and de- 
livered a spirited address, in the course of which he 
said that if the platform laid down by the President 
in his message upon the tariff question were carried 
out and vigorously fought ui)on in the state, it would, 



20 WILLIAM JENNINGS P.UYAN 

in the course of a short time, give Nebraska to the 
Democracy. He thought if the Democrats went out 
to the farmers and people who lived in Nebraska and 
showed them the iniquity of the tariff system, they 
would rally round the cause which their noble leader, 
Grover Cleveland, had championed.'' This short, but 
pointed speech created the greatest amount of en- 
thusiasm, and the young orator impressed his person- 
ality upon the public mind of his adopted state. 

In the fall of 1888, Mr. Bryan made a canvass of 
the First Congressional District, in behalf of Hon. J. 
Sterling Morton, and also visited some thirty counties 
throughout the state. Mr. Morton was defeated by 
three thousand four hundred, the district being norm- 
ally Eepublican. 

When the campaign of 1890 opened, a few Demo- 
crats who came to appreciate Mr. Bryan's real ability 
believed that with him as the nominee the Republicans 
could be defeated. So when the Democratic conven- 
tion met at Lincoln, July 31, 1890, Mr. Bryan was 
selected without opposition, and at once began a vig- 
orous campaign. He began a thorough canvass, speak, 
ing about eighty times, and visiting every city and 
village in the district. At the close of the last debate, 
he presented to Mr. Connell (his opponent) a copy of 
Gray's Elegy, with the following remarks : ^'Mr. Con- 
nell : We now bring to a close the series of debates 
which was arranged by our committees. I am glad we 
have been able to conduct these discussions in a cour- 
teous and friendly manner. If I have in any way 
offended you in word or deed, I offer apology and 



IN CONGRESS 21 

regret; and as freely forgive. I desire to present to 
you, in remembrance of these pleasant meetings, this 
little volume, because it contains 'Gray's Elegy,' in 
perusing which I trust you will find as much pleasure 
and profit as I have found. It is one of the most 
beautiful and touching tributes to human life that 
literature contains. Grand in its sentiments and 
sublime in its simplicity, we may both find in it a 
solace in victory or defeat. If success crowns your 
efforts in this campaign, and it should be your lot 

'The applause of listening senates to command' 
and I am left 

'A youth to fortune and to fame unknown,' 
forget not us who in the common walks of life per- 
form our part, but in the hour of your triumph recall 

the verse: 

'Let not ambition mock their useful toil, 
Their homely joys and destiny obscure; 
Nor grandeur hear, with a disdainful smile, 
The short and simple annals of the poor.' 

"If on the other hand, by the verdict of my country- 
men, I should be made your successor, let it not be 
said of you 

'And melancholy marked him for her own', 
but find sweet consolation in the thought : 

'Full many a gem of purest ray serene. 
The dark unf athomed caves of ocean bear ; 
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, 
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.' 

"But when the palm of victory is given to you or to 
me, let us remember those of whom the poet says : 



22 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

Tar from the madding crowd's ignoble strife 
Their sober wishes never learned to stray, 
Along the cool, sequestered vale of life. 
They kept the noiseless tenor of their way.' 

"These are the ones most likely to be forgotten by 
the Government. When the poor and weak cry out 
for relief, they too often hear no answer but 'the 
echo of their cry/ while the rich, the strong, the 
powerful are given an attentive ear. For this reason 
is class legislation dangerous and deadly; it takes 
from those least able to lose, and gives to those who 
are least in need. The safety of our farmers and our 
laborers is not in special legislation, but in equal and 
just laws that bear alike on every man. The great 
masses of our people are interested, not in getting 
their hands into other people's pockets, but in keeping 
the hands of other people out of their pockets. Let 
me, in parting, express the hope that you and I may 
be instrumental in bringing our Government back to 
better laws which will give equal treatment without 
regard to creed or condition. I bid you a friendly 
farewell. '^ 

Mr. Bryan closed his campaign at the city of Lin- 
coln, and was elected by a plurality of six thousand 
seven hundred in the same district which two years 
before had defeated Mr. Morton by a plurality of 
three thousand four hundred. He was elected in one 
of the fairest and most brilliant campaigns ever 
fought; and became one of the most prominent mem- 
bers of the lower House from the West. 

The explanation of Mr. Bryan's popularity must be 



IN CONGRESS 23 

sought in a cause which lies deeper than a political 
issue. 

When he entered Congress he gave his support 
in caucus to Mr. Springer, for Speaker of the House, 
in whose district he had lived when at Jackson- 
ville. In the House, he voted for Mr. Crisp, the 
caucus nominee. Mr. Springer w^as made chairman 
of the Committee on Ways and Means, and although 
it was unprecedented to give to a first term member a 
position on the all-important Ways and Means Com- 
mittee, Speaker Crisp conferred that unprecedented 
honor upon Bryan of Nebraska. One of the first bills 
introduced by Mr. Bryan w^as that providing for the 
election of senators by the people, at the option of 
each state. 

In supporting this bill Mr. Bryan said: "Mr. 
Speaker — I desire to call the attention of the House 
to w^hat I consider a very important question involved 
in this joint resolution. I shall not consume time in 
discussing the general principle of electing senators 
by the people. If the people of a state have enough 
intelligence to choose their representatives in the 
state legislature, their executive officers, judges, and 
their officials in all the departments of the state and 
country, they have enough intelligence to choose the 
men w^ho shall represent them in the United States 
Senate. 

"And now% sirs, if we w^ant to secure the election of 
senators by the people, we must submit a proposition 
free from the Republican idea of Federal interference, 
and free from the Democratic idea of non-interference. 



24 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

We may just as well cease the attempt to secure this 
reform if we are going to tie it to Federal election 
laws. I appeal to members of both sides of the House, 
members who in their hearts desire this reform, mem- 
bers who in their own judgment believe that the time 
has come to give the people a chance to vote for the 
senators, Democrats, Republicans, and Populists 
alike, to join in a proposition which will eliminate the 
political question and leave us simply the question of 
election by the people or not." 

The bill attracted much attention through the 
country, although it failed of final passage. 

On March 16, 1892, Mr. Bryan made his great tariff 
speech in the House, which is considered in another 
chapter of this work. In the spring of 1892, the silver 
sentiment began to show itself among the leaders of 
the Nebraska Democracy. The state convention to 
elect delegates to the National Democratic convention 
was called for April 15, 1892, and found Mr. Bryan 
back in Lincoln, by the consent of the House, making 
a determined effort for the adoption of a plank favor- 
ing the free coinage of silver. The fight was a hard 
and bitter one. In supporting this part of the plat- 
form Mr. Bryan said in part: 

"Gentlemen — I do not believe it is noble to dodge 
any issue. If, as has been indicated, this may have 
an effect on my campaign, then no bridegroom went 
with gladder heart to greet his bride that I shall wel- 
come defeat. Vote this down if you will, but do not 
dodge it; for that is not democratic." The convention 
went wild in a body, a vote was called, which brought 



IN CONGRESS 25 

defeat to the Bryan silver plank. By this act Mr. 
Bryan incurred the hatred of the Cleveland adminis- 
tration. 

Upon the return of Mr. Bryan to Nebraska at the 
close of the 52d Congress, a series of debates had been 
arranged with the Kepublican party nominee, Allen 
W. Field, then judge of the district court. This was 
even a more bitter contest than the first. Mr. McKin- 
ley, Mr. Foraker, and others were called to Nebraska 
to aid the Kepublican cause. They made desperate 
efforts to "down'' Bryan, but in spite of all he was 
reelected by a majority of one hundred fifty-two. 

As a congressman William Jennings Bryan was a 
success. From the moment he entered Congress, he 
was a leader. To those who knew him intimately, it 
was no surprise that during the first term he sprang 
suddenly into prominence. His speech on the tariff 
question stamped him not only as an orator, but a 
man who had made a deep political study of economic 
questions. 

It was not until his second term that he really 
focussed public attention upon himself. When Con- 
gress was convened in extraordinary session, he went 
to Washington prepared to resist the repeal of the 
purchasing clause of the Sherman act. He knew the 
feeling of his constituents, and being thoroughly 
familiar with every phase of the question, he entered 
upon the fight like a gladiator. His conspicuous 
record as an orator in the previous session was suflft- 
cient to get him a place in the great debate, and, when 
the opportunity came, Bryan was prepared for it. 



20 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

For several days it was known that tie was to speak, 
and the galleries of the House were crowded at each 
session. Finally he was recognized b}^ the Speaker, 
and he began the piost effective speech that had been 
heard in Congress in year^, Everybody was quiet and 
listened. The oldest member could not remember 
when a man had received such marked attention and 
such spontaneous applause as Bryan got that day. 
As he stood there, the picture of health, a physical 
giant, his voice falling in easy cadence, he impressed 
upon his hearers the thought that he meant every word 
he was saying. He had every one in his grasp. As 
he continued, the audience became worked up to a 
high pitch, and when he concluded with a magnificent 
peroration, quiet reigned for a moment, then suddenly 
ever}^ one joined in tumultuous aijplause. Bryan had 
finished ; he had made a speech that for thought, logic, 
and sentiment, to say nothing of its matchless de- 
livery, had few equals in the records of Congress. For 
two hours and fifty minutes the young Nebraska 
orator held the close attention of a full house and 
crowded galleries. Instead of members leaving the 
hall as usual, they crowded in, and every man was in 
his seat. This speech made him famous. Occasionally 
a single standard man would interrupt, but none did 
it without subsequent regret. He knew his case too 
well. 

From that day to this, Bryan has been in the public 
eye everywhere. Many who heard his tariff speech 
predicted that it was a flash light, and would soon 
groAV dim, and its author be forgotten; but after he 



IN CONGRESS 27 

made his silver speech those who thought his first an 
accident were compelled to admit that he possessed 
all the qualifications of a statesman and that he was 
bound to be a leader in his party. 

Besides his silver and tariff speeches, Mr. Bryan 
spoke briefly upon several other questions, namely, in 
favor of foreclosure of Government liens on all 
Pacific railways, and in favor of the anti-option bill. 
He favored the application of the principle of arbitra- 
tion as far as Federal authority extends. On January 
30, 1894, Mr. Bryan, in a speech in favor of the income 
tax, brilliantly and successfuly replied to the speech 
of Bourke Cockran delivered in opposition to that 
measure. 

His record in Congress did not consist entirely of 
speech-making. He was a tireless worker for his con- 
stituents, and he secured more pensions for old 
soldiers living in his district than all the Kepublican 
congressmen who had preceded him. He personally 
attended to the wants of every constituent, and no 
man ever wrote a letter asking his assistance that he 
did not at once enlist Bryan's active support. He was 
vigilant and watchful, and never missed an oppor- 
tunity to do a favor. 

He was exceedingly active in Congress, dodging 
nothing, and often speaking on the current questions. 
Yet nothing that he did or said in Congress comes 
back to plague him. It was then thought, and it has 
since been hoped, that in the fulness of his record 
something would come back to trip him. But what 
he said then only makes him stronger now. 



28 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

It may not be amiss at this point to quote from Mrs. 
Bryan, who said : "Quoting from a eulogy which Mr. 
Bryan delivered upon a colleague in the 53d Congress, 
this extract will serve a double purpose, in that it 
gives his views upon immortality, and, at the same 
time, presents a passage which I think may, without 
impropriety, be called a finished bit of English. Mr. 
Bryan said ^I shall not believe that even now his light 
is extinguished. If the Father deigns to touch with 
divine power the cold and pulseless heart of the buried 
acorn, and make it burst forth from its buried walls, 
will He leave neglected in the earth, the soul of man, 
who was made in the image of his Creator? If he 
stoops to give to the rosebush, whose withered 
blossoms float upon the breeze, the sweet assurance 
of another springtime, will he withhold the words of 
hope from the sons of man when the frosts of winter 
come? If matter, mute and inanimate, though 
changed by the forces of Nature into a multitude of 
forms, can never die, will the imperial spirit of man 
suffer annihilation after it has paid a brief visit, like 
a royal guest, to this tenement of clay? Rather let 
us believe that He, who, in His apparent prodigality, 
makes the blade of grass or the evening's sighing 
zephyr, but makes them to carry out His eternal plan, 
has given immortality to the mortal, and gathered to 
Himself the generous spirit of our friend. Instead of 
mourning, let us look up and address him in the 
words of the poet : 



IN CONGRESS 29 

' "The day has come, not gone ; 
The sun has risen, not set ; 
Thy life is now beyond 
The reach of death or change, 
Not ended — but begun 
O, noble soul ! O, gentle heart ! Hail, and farewell/ " 

Mr. Bryan was singularly free from egotism, affec- 
tation, or envy of the fame of others. That he was 
brilliant goes without saying, but his brilliancy was 
as natural and easy as to be like Shakespeare's de- 
scription of mercy : 

"The quality of mercy is not strained. 
It dropped as the gentle rain from heaven 
Upon the places beneath. It is twice blessed ; 
It blesses him that gives and him that takes." 



THE TARIFF. 

For twenty years prior to 1896 the chief tangible 
point of difference between the Democratic and He- 
publican parties was the tariff question. It was, in 
truth, a question on which the two great parties had 
always differed since the days when they were known 
as Federalists and Anti-Federalists. 

The Democratic party, in true accord with the prin- 
ciples of Thomas Jefferson, has always held that gov- 
ernment to be best which interfers least with the 
liberty of the individual. The purpose of government, 
it has held, is to protect man in his personal rights 
against the unjust encroachments of his neighbors. 
But, according to the Democratic idea, government 
should not interfere to arbitrarily promote the inter- 
ests of any class of its citizens at the expense of any 
other class. All should be left, protected against 
illegal encroachment, but otherwise unmolested, to 
work out their own salvation. In other words, De- 
mocracy believes that government to be best which 
governs least. 

The Republican theory, on the other hand, has in- 
clined toward the exactly opposite point of view ; that 
that government is best which governs most. It has 
acted consistently on the principle that it is not only 
permissible but advisable for government to be made 
an instrument for advancing the pecuniary or busi- 



THE TARIFF 

ness interests of such of its citizens as seem m^t de- 
serving or are most fortunate in winning its ear. It 
was this radical difference between the two parties, 
involving, as it did, a basic and fundamental princi- 
ple, that lay at the root of the controversy regarding 
tariff duties. ^ 

The Democratic party, adhering to the strict letter 
of the Constitution, held that the tariff should be 
levied for one simple purpose, and that the purpose 
contemplated by the Constitution — to raise revenue. 
With this end in view, the party contended, tariff 
duties should be levied mostly on such articles as are 
not produced in this country, and, in order to equalize 
the burden of taxation, be imposed rather on luxuries 
than the strict necessities of life. 

The Republican party took a more radical position. 
It advocated the levying of tariff duties, not pri- 
marily for the purpose of raising revenue, — that was 
made a secondary consideration, — but to protect 
from foreign competition the manufacturing and in- 
dustrial enterprises of the United States. Then, it 
argued, these establishments, protected by the foster- 
ing arm of government, would grow great and strong, 
furnishing at once employment for labor at high 
wages, and a ^'home market" for the products of the 
American farm and mine. 

Controverting this alluring argument, the Demo- 
cratic party held that government had no right to 
compel citizens of one class or section to contribute 
involuntarily to the support of citizens of some other 
class or section of the country. The only manner in 



32 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

which a protective tariff could protect, it pointed out, 
was bj enabling the home manufacturer to charge a 
higher price because of the duty on foreign goods. 
This added price, it showed, must be paid into the 
pocket of the American manufacturer by the Ameri- 
can consumer. Moreover, it declared, the farmer 
could only share the burden without receiving any cf 
the benefits of a high protective tariff, the price of his 
products being fixed in the world's markets at Liver- 
pool and London. And the same thing, it held, was 
true of the laboring man, as the rate of his remuner- 
ation was fixed mainly by "the iron law of wages." 
f When Mr. Br van was elected to Conc^ress for his 
first term this question of tariff was the all-absorbing 
one before the people. The Republican party, in the 
zenith of its power, had enacted the McKinley tariff 
law, the embodiment of its views on this question, 
levying tariff duties so high as almost to exclude 
foreign competition.^ It was in this law, undoubtedly, 
that most of the great trusts and monopolies since 
formed read their birthright. 

Mr. Bryan, naturally, as a Democrat and a firm 
believer in the principles of government laid down 
by Thomas Jefferson, was vigorously opposed to the 
theory of a high protective tariff. The Congress in 
which he served his first term was Democratic, the 
result of the enactment of the trust-breeding Mc- 
Kinley tariff law. The Ways and Means Committee, 
of which Mr. Springer of Illinois was chairman, de- 
cided that relief might best be effected by the intro- 



THE TARIFF 33 

duction of a series of bills, transferring certain 
commodities to the free list. 

It was in support of one of these — a bill placing 
wool on the free list and reducing the duties on woolen 
goods — that Mr. Bryan delivered his maiden speech in 

(the House. This was on Wednesday, March 16, 1892. 
Like Byron, he awoke the next morning and found 
himself famous. The speech had attracted the admir- 
ing attention of the whole country. The young ora- 
tor's logic, acute reasoning, powers of broad general- 
ization, and apt and homely illustration, not less than 
his genuine eloquence, incisive wit, and brilliant rep- 
artee, had, in one speech, won him a place at the 
head of the list of American parliamentary orators. 

In his speech Mr. Bryan thus effectually punctured 
with his ridicule the Republican argument generally 
advanced that a high tariff makes low prices : 

"Now, there are two arguments which I have never 
heard advanced in favor of protection; but they are 
the best arguments. They admit a fact and justify it, 
and I think that is the best way to argue, if you have a 
fact to meet. Why not say to the farmer, 'Yes, of 
course you lose; but does not the Bible say, "It is more 
blessed to give than to receive" — [laughter] — and if 
you suffer some inconvenience, just look back over 
your life and you will find that your happiest moments 
were enjoyed when you were giving something to 
somebody, and the most unpleasant moments ^ei^ 
when you were receiving.' These manufacturers are 
self-sacrificing. They are willing to take the lesser 
part, and the more unpleasant business of receiving, 



34 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

and leave to you the greater joy of giving. [Loud 
laughter and applause on the Democratic side.] 

"Why do they not take the other theory, which is 
borne out by history — that all nations which have 
grown strong, powerful, and influential, just as indi- 
viduals, have done it through hardship, toil, and 
sacrifice, and that after they have become Avealthy 
they have been enervated, they have gone to decay 
through the enjoyment of luxury, and that the great 
advantage of the protective system is that it goes 
around among the people and gathers up their surplus 
earnings so that they will not be enervated or weak- 
ened, so that no legacy of evil will be left to their chil- 
dren. Their surplus earnings are collected up, and the 
great mass of our people are left strong, robust, and 
hearty. These earnings are garnered and put into the 
hands of just as few people as possible, so that the in- 
jury will be limited in extent. [Great laughter and ap- 
plause on the Democratic side.] And they say, ^Yes, 
of course, of course; it makes dudes of our sons, and it 
does, perhaps, compel us to buy foreign titles for our 
daughters [laughter], but of course if the grea^ body 
of the people are benefited, as good, patriotic citizens 
we ought not to refuse to bear the burden.' 
[Laughter.] 

"Why do they not do that? They simply come to 
you and tell you that they want a high tariff to make 
low prices, so that the manufacturer will be able to 
pay large wages to his employees. [Laughter.] And 
then, they want a high tariff on agricultural products 
so that they will have to buy what they buy at the 



THE TARIFF 35 

highest possible price. They tell you that a tariff 
on wool is for the benefit of the farmer, and goes into 
his pocket, but that the tariff on manufactured 
products goes into the farmer's pocket, too, *and 
really hurts us, but we will stand it if we must.' They 
are much like a certain maiden lady of uncertain age, 
who said, 'This being the third time that my beau has 
called, he might make some affectionate demonstra- 
tion'; and, summing up all her courage, she added, 
'I have made up my mind that if he does I will bear it 
with fortitude.' " [Great laughter and applause.] 

He thus pleaded for the protection of the greatest 
of ''home industries," — the home-building of the com- 
mon people : 

"I desire to say, Mr. Chairman, that this Republi- 
can party, which is responsible for the present system, 
has stolen from the vocabulary one of its dearest 
words and debased its use. Its orators have prated 
about home industries while they have neglected the 
most important of home industries — the home of the 
citizen. The Democratic party, so far from being 
hostile to the home indutries, is the only champion, 
unless our friends here, the Independents, will join 
with us, of the real home industry of this country. 

"When some young man selects a young woman who 
is willing to trust her future to his strong right arm, 
and they start to build a little home, that home which 
is the unit of society and upon which our Government 
and our prosperity must rest — when they start to 
build this little home, and the man who sells the lum- 
ber reaches out his hand to collect a tariff upon that ; 



36 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

the man who sells paints and oils wants a tariff upon 
them ; the man who furnishes the carpets, tablecloths, 
knives, forks, dishes, furniture, spoons, everything 
that enters into the construction and operation of 
that home — when all these hands, I say, are stretched 
out from every direction to lay their blighting weight 
upon that cottage, and the Democratic party says, 
^Hands off, and let that home industry live,' it is pro- 
tecting the grandest home industry that this or any 
other nation ever had. [Loud applause on the Demo- 
ratic side.] 

"And I am willing that you, our friends on the other 
side, shall have what consolation you may gain from 
the protection of those 'home industries' which have 
crowned with palatial residences the hills of New 
England, if you will simply give us the credit of be- 
ing the champions of the homes of this land. [Ap- 
plause on the Democratic side.] It would seem that 
if any appeal could find a listening ear in this legisla- 
tive hall it ought to be the appeal that comes up from 
those co-tenants of earth's only paradise; but your 
party has neglected them; more, it has spurned and 
spit upon them. When they asked for bread you gave 
them a stone, and when they asked for a fish you gave 
them a serpent. You have laid upon them burdens 
grievous to be borne. You have filled their days with 
toil and their nights with anxious care, and when they 
cried aloud for relief you were deaf to their 
entreaties." 

The conclusion of Mr. Bryan's speech is here re- 
produced. It is of greater length than would ordi- 



THE TARIFF 37 

narily justify its incorporation in a volume of this 
size, but the objection is outweighed by the fact, that, 
in most beautiful English, it outlines the idea of gov- 
ernment which has since been the beacon light that 
has guided Mr. Bryan's career: 

"We can not afford to destroy the peasantry of this 
country. We can not afford to degrade the common 
people of this land, for they are the people who in time 
of prosperity and peace produce the wealth of the 
country, and they are also the people who in time of 
war bare their breasts to a hostile fire in defense of 
the flag. Go to Arlington or to any of the national 
cemeteries, see there the plain white monuments 
w^hich mark the place Svhere rest the ashes of the na- 
tion's countless dead,' those of whom the poet has so 
beautifully written : 

^On Fame's eternal camping ground 
Their silent tents are spread.' 

Who were they? Were they the beneficiaries of 
special legislation? Were they the people who are 
ever clamoring for privileges? No, my friends; those 
who come here and obtain from Government its aid 
and help find in time of war too great a chance to 
increase their wealth to give much attention to mili- 
tary duties. A nation's extremity is their oppor- 
tunity. They are the ones who make contracts, care- 
fully drawm, providing for the payment of their 
money in coin, while the government goes out, if nec- 
essary, and drafts the people and makes them lay 
down upon the altar of their country all they have. 
No; the people who fight the battles are largely the 



38 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

poor, the common people of the country; those who 
have little to save but their honor, and little to lose 
but their lives. These are the ones, and I say to you, 
sir, that the country can not afford to lose them. I 
quote the language of Pericles in his great funeral 
oration. He says : 

'It was for such a country, then, that these men, 
nobly resolving not to have it taken from them, fell 
fighting ; and every one of their survivors may well be 
willing to suffer in its behalf.' 

That, Mr. Chairman, is a noble sentiment and points 
the direction to the true policy for a free people. It 
must be by beneficent laws ; it must be by a just gov- 
ernment which a free people can love and upon which 
they can rely that the nation is to be preserved. We 
can not put our safety in a great navy ; we can not put 
our safety in expensive fortifications along a seacoast 
thousands of miles in extent, nor can we put our 
safety in a great standing army that would absorb in 
idleness the toil of the men it protects. A free govern- 
ment must find its safety in happy and contented cit- 
izens, who, protected in their rights and free from 
unnecessary burdens, will be willing to die that the 
blessings which they enjoy may be transmitted to 
their posterity. 

"Thomas Jefferson, that greatest of statesmen and 
most successful of politicians, tersely expressed the 
true purpose of government when he said : 

" 'With all these blessings, what more is necessary 
to make us a happy and prosperous people? Still one 
thing more, fellow citizens : a wise and frugal govern- 



THE TARIFF 39 

ment, which shall restrain men from injuring one an- 
other ; shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their 
own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall 
not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has 
earned. This is the sum of good government, and this 
is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.' 

"That is the inspiration of the Democratic party; 
that is its aim and object. If it comes, Mr. Chairman, 
into power in all of the departments of this govern- 
ment it will not destroy industry; it will not injure 
labor; but it will save to the men who produce the 
wealth of the country a larger portion of that wealth. 
It will bring prosperity and joy and happiness, not to 
a few, but to every one without regard to station or 
condition. The day will come, Mr. Chairman — the 
day will come when those who annually gather about 
this Congress seeking to use the taxing power for 
private purposes will find their occupation gone, and 
the members of Congress will meet here to pass laws 
for the benefit of all the people. That day will come, 
and in that day, to use the language of another, ^De- 
mocracy will be king! Long live the king!' " [Pro- 
longed applause on the Democratic side.] 



THE RISE OP THE SILVER ISSUE 

In every national campaign since the time silver, 
was demonetized in 1873 the demand for bimetallism 
has been a platform plank always of one and fre- 
quently of both of the two great political parties. The 
first unequivocal renunciation of the policy and theory 
of bimetallism on the part of any important national 
convention occurred in June, 1900, at Philadelphia. 
In 1896 the Republican party, in its platform adopted 
at St. Louis, pledged itself to the promotion of bimet- 
allism by international agreement. The Democratic 
party, both in 1896 and 1900, expressed its conviction 
that bimetallism could be secured by the independent 
action of the United States, and to that end demanded 
'^the free and unlimited coinage of both gold and 
silver, at the present legal ratio of 16 to 1, without 
waiting for the aid or consent of any other nation.'' 

Previous to 1896 each of the great political parties 
made quadrennial expressions of faith in the bime- 
tallic theory, frequently demanded its enactment into 
law, and generally condemned the opposing party for 
^'hostility to silver." And yet, despite the universal 
belief in bimetallism on the part of the American 
people; despite the general demands for bimetallism 
made by both political parties ; despite the many and 
eloquent speeches for bimetallism delivered in Con- 
gress and out of it by party leaders of all complexions, 



THE RISE OF THE SILVER ISSUE 41 

the hope of its becoming an actuality seemed to wither 
and wane in inverse ratio to the fervency of the ex- 
pressions of friendship on the part of the politiciatns. 
Sometimes those who were most vehement in their 
demands were most instrumental in the passage of 
that series of legislative enactments that inevitably 
broadened and deepened the gulf between gold and 
silver. 

In explanation of this phenomenon it may be said 
that of all the functions of government none is more 
important than the power to regulate the quality and 
quantity of its circulating medium; none more 
freighted either with prosperity or disaster to its 
people; and none more liable to make demagogues 
of statesmen and knaves and hypocrites of those in 
authority. 

The first overt act in the fight against bimetallism, 
which theretofore had been insidious, was the de- 
mand of the Cleveland administration and the powers 
that were behind it for the repeal of the purchasing 
clause of the Sherman Act. The clause which was 
aimed at provided for the purchase by the government 
of bar silver sufficient for the annual coinage of |54,- 
000,000. With its repeal w^ould disappear from the 
Federal statute books the last vestige of authority for 
the coinage of silver money other than subsidiary 
coins. 

In the fight against the administration over this 
measure Mr. Brj-an took a leading part. He was one 
of the public men whose professions and practices in 
the matter of financial legislation were not at vari- 



42 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

ance. In his first campaign for Congress, in 1890, he 
had inserted in his platform this plank, written by 
himself : 

^^We demand the free coinage of silver on equal 
terms with gold and denounce the efforts of the Re- 
I)ublican party to serve the interest of Wall Street as 
against the rights of the people." 

In 1891 he had secured the adoption of a free silver 
plank in the Nebraska Democratic platform. In 1892 
he made a hard fight for a similar plank in the state 
platform, but lost by a very close vote. On the day 
before the national convention which nominated Mr. 
Cleveland for president, Mr. Bryan was renominated 
for Congress on a j^latform in which free coinage was 
made tlie paramount issue, and throughout the cam- 
X)aign he devoted to it the major portion of his time. 
In this way, from free choice and impelling conviction, 
Mr. Bryan had committed himself to the doctrine of 
bimetallism and had declared his plan for putting it 
into practice. 

Mr. Bryan made his first speech in Congress against 
unconstitutional repeal on Februar}^ 9, 1893. In it he 
said: 

^'I call attention to the fact that there is not in this 
bill a single line or sentence which is not opposed to 
the whole history of the Democratic party. We have 
opposed the principle of the national bank on all 
occasions, and yet you give them by this bill an in- 
creased currency of $15,000,000. You have pledged 
the party to reduce the taxation upon the people, and 
yet, before you attempt to lighten this burden, you 



THE RISE OF THE SILVER ISSUE 43 

take off one-half million of dollars annually from the 
national banks of the country; and even after declar- 
ing in your national platform that the Sherman act 
was a 'cowardly makeshift' you attempt to take away 
the 'makeshift' before you give us the real thing for 
which the makeshift was substituted. . . . Mr. 
Speaker, consider the effect of this bill. It means that 
by suspending the purchase of silver we will throw 
fifty-four million ounces on the market annually and 
reduce the price of silver bullion. It means that we 
will widen the difference between the coinage and 
bullion value of silver and raise a greater obstacle in 
the way of bimetallism. It means to increase by 
billions of dollars the debts of our people. It means a 
reduction in the price of our wheat and our cotton. 
You have garbled the platform of the Democratic 
party. You have taken up one clause of it, and re- 
fused to give us a fulfilment of the other and more 
important clause, which demands that gold and silver 
shall be coined on equal terms without charge for 
mintage. 

"Mr. Speaker, this can not be done. A man who 
murders another shortens by a few brief years the 
life of a human being; but he who votes to increase 
the burden of debts upon the people of the United 
States assumes a graver responsibility. If we who 
represent them consent to rob our people, the cotton- 
growers of the South and the wheat-growers of the 
West, we will be criminals whose guilt can not be 
measured by words, for we will bring distress and 
disaster to our people." 



44 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

In tlius boldly and positively aligning himself 
against the policy of the dominant wing of his own 
party, which would soon be backed by the incoming 
Cleveland administration, Mr. Bryan acted with his 
characteristic devotion to principle. He could not 
help seeing that all the odds were apparently against 
that faction of his party with which he threw in his 
fortunes. Mr. Cleveland and most of the old, hon- 
ored, and powerful leaders of democracy, it was 
known, would join in the fight against silver. They 
would have the powerful aid of the great Republican 
leaders and be backed by the almost united influence 
of the hundreds of daily newspapers in all the large 
cities. Wealth, influence, experience, and so-called 
"respectability'^ were all to be the property of the 
Cleveland wing. Many trusted leaders of the old-time 
fight for silver succumbed to the temptation and iden- 
tified themselves with the dominant faction. Not so 
Mr. Bryan. On the failure of the bill to pass he re- 
turned home and devoted all his time to a thorough 
study of finance and of money, making the most care- 
ful and complete preparation for the fight which he 
saw impending. 

The great struggle, which Mr. Bryan has termed 
"the most important economic discussion which ever 
took place in our Congress" was precipitated by Pres- 
ident Cleveland when he called Congress to meet in 
special session on August 7, 1893. Mr. Wilson, of 
West Virginia, Chairman of the Ways and Means 
Committee, introduced in the House the administra- 




CHAS. A. TOWNE 



THE RISE OF THE SILVER ISSUE 45 

tion measure for the unconditional repeal of the pur- \ 
chasing clause of the Sherman Act. 

The debate that ensued was one of the most bril- 
liantly and ably conducted in the annals of Congress. 
On August 16, near the close of the debate, Mr. Bryan 
delivered an extended argument against the bill. His 
speech in point of profound reasoning and moving 
oratory stands prominent in the list of congressional 
deliverances. It concluded with the following mag- 
nificent appeal : 

"To-day the Democratic party stands between two 
great forces, each inviting its support. On the one 
side stand the corporate interests of the nation, its 
moneyed institutions, its aggregations of wealth and 
capital, imperious, arrogant, copapassionless. They 
demand special legislation, favors, privileges, and 
immunities. They can subscribe magnificently to 
campaign funds; they can strike down opposition 
w^ith their all-pervading influence, and, to those who 
fawn and flatter, bring ease and plenty. They de- 
mand that the Democratic party shall become their 
agent to execute their merciless decrees. 

"On the other side stands that unnumbered throng 
which gave a name to the Democratic party, and for 
which it has assumed to speak. Work-worn and dust- 
begrimed they make their sad appeal. They hear of 
average wealth increased on every side and feel the 
inequality of its distribution. They see an overpro- 
duction of everything desired because of an underpro- 
duction of the ability to buy. They can not pay for 
loyalty except with their suffrages, and can only 



46 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

punish betrayal with their condemnation. Althoui^h 
the ones who most deserve the fostering care of Gov- 
ernment, their cries for help too often beat in vain 
against the outer wall, while others less deserving find 
ready access to legislative halls. 

''This army, vast and daily growing, begs the party 
to be its champion in the present conflict. It can not 
press its claims mid sounds of revelry. Its phalanxes 
do not form in grand parade, nor has it gaudy banners 
floating on the breeze. Its battle hymn is 'Rome, 
Sweet Home,' its war cry 'equality before the law.' 
To the Democratic party, standing between these two 
irreconcilable forces, uncertain to which side to turn, 
and conscious that upon its choice its fate depends, 
come the words of Israel's second law-giver : 'Choose 
you this day whom ye will serve.' What will the au- 
SAver be? Let me invoke the memory of him Avhose 
dust made sacred the soil of Monticello when he 
joined 

'The dead but sceptered sovereigns who still rule 
Our spirits from their urns.' 

"He was called a demagogue and his followers a 
mob, but the immortal Jefferson dared to follow the 
best promptings of his heart. He placed man above 
matter, humanity above i)roperty, and, spurning the 
bribes of wealth and power, pleaded the cause of the 
common people. It was this devotion to their inter- 
ests which made his party invincible while he lived, 
and will make his name revered while history endures. 

"And what message comes to us from the Hermit- 
age? When a crisis like the present arose and the 



THE RISE OF THE SILVER ISSUE 47 

national bank of the day sought to control the politics 
of the nation, God raised up an Andrew Jackson, 
who had the courage to grapple with that great enemy, 
and by overthrowing it he made himself the idol of 
the people and reinstated the Democratic party in 
public confidence. What will the decision be to-day? 

^•The Democratic party has won the greatest success 
in its history. Standing upon this victory-crowned 
summit, will it turn its face to the rising or the setting 
sun? Will it choose blessings or cursings — life or 
death— ^Vhich? Which?" 

The bill passed the House by a considerable ma- 
jority and went to the Senate. In two months it came 
back with Senate amendments. So earnest and deter- 
mined was Mr. Bryan in his opposition to the measure 
that he resorted to dilatory tactics, employing eyery 
legitimate parliamentary weapon to obstruct its prog- 
ress. When finally even the enemies of the bill would 
no longer assist him in the fight for delay, Mr. Bryan 
determined to abandon the fight in Congress to carry 
it before the Democracy of the nation. In concluding 
his last speech on the bill he said : 

^^You may think that you have buried the cause of 
bimetallism; you may congratulate yourselves that 
you have laid the free coinage of silver away in a 
sepulchre, newly made since the election, and before 
the door rolled the veto stone. But, sirs, if our cause 
is just, as I believe it is, your labor has been in vain : 
no tomb was ever made so strong that it could im- 
prison a righteous cause. Silver will lay aside its 



48 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

grave clothes and its shroud. It will yet rise and in 
its rising and its reign will bless mankind." 

Though defeated in the first great contest, the silver 
advocates were far from dismayed. They began at 
once a systematic fight to wrest from the administra- 
tion the control of the party organization. The 
factional fight w^ithin the ranks of Democracy gave 
early promise of becoming exceedingly bitter. The 
feeling was accentuated from the start by the personal 
efforts of President Cleveland in behalf of the repeal 
bill. In the Senate the silver men had what was con- 
sidered a safe majority, and it was to overcome this 
and secure the passage of the bill that the President 
had directed his energies. His great weapon was Fed- 
eral patronage, and he used it as a club. Never before 
in the history of popular government in the United 
States had the executive so boldly and so openly ex- 
erted the tremendous influence of his position in an 
attempt to force a coordinate branch of government 
into unwilling compliance with his wishes. Mr. Cleve- 
land's interference, which finally accomplished its 
purpose, was angrily resented by the Silver Demo- 
crats, and the lines between administration and 
anti-administration were early closely drawn. 

Mr. Bryan, while the repeal bill was still under dis- 
cussion in the Senate, attended the Nebraska State 
Democratic convention as a delegate, on October 4, 
1893. In the convention the administration wing of 
the party was regnant, imperious, and arrogant. A 
platform endorsing the President and his fight against 
silver was adopted by a large majority. Bryan was 



THE RISE OF THE SILVER ISSUE 49 

even denied a place on the resolutions committee, al- 
though endorsed therefor by his Congressional dis- 
trict, which almost alone had sent silver delegates. 
His course in Congress was repudiated and himself 
personally received with but scant courtesy or consid- 
eration on the part of the great majority of the dele- 
gates. When the gold men, flushed with victory, 
were about to complete their conquest, the discredited 
young Congressman sprang to the platform to address 
the convention. His whole person was quivering with 
emotion, and as he spoke he strode up and down the 
platform with a mien of unconcealed anger and de- 
fiance. Never was he more truly the orator, and never 
was tame beast so abject and so pitiful under the 
scourge of the master as was that convention, mute 
and defenseless, under his scathing excoriation. The 
following extract will give an idea of the substance of 
the speech, though the flashing eyes of the orator, the 
tense and quivering frame, the voice now ringing with 
defiance, now trembling with emotion, — these may 
never be described. 

"Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Conven- 
tion — We are confronted to-day by as important a 
question as ever came before the Democracy of the 
state of Nebraska. It is not a personal question. It is 
a question that rises above individuals. So far as I am 
personally concerned it matters nothing whether you 
vote this amendment up or down ; it matters nothing 
to me whether you pass resolutions censuring my 
course or endorsing it. If I am wrong in the position 
I have taken on this great financial question, I shall 



50 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

fall though you heap jour praises upon me; if I am 
right, and in my heart, so help me God, I believe I 
am, I shall triumph yet, although you condemn me in 
3'our convention a hundred times. Gentlemen, you are 
playing in the basement of politics; there is a higher 
plane. You think you can pass resolutions censuring 
a man, and that vou can humiliate him. I want to 
tell you that I still 'more true joy in exile feel' than 
those delegates who are afraid to vote their own senti- 
ments or represent the wishes of the people, lest they 
may not get Federal office. Gentlemen, I know not 
what others may do, but duty to country is above duty 
to party, and if you represent your constituents in 
what you have done and will do — for I do not enter- 
tain the fond hope that you who have voted as you 
have to-day will change upon this vote — if you as 
delegates properly represent the sentiment of the 
Democratic party which sent you here; if the resolu- 
tions which have been proposed and which you will 
adopt express the sentiments of the party in this 
state; if the party declares in favor of a gold standard, 
as you will if you pass this resolution ; if 3^ou declare 
in favor of the impoverishment of the people of Ne- 
braska; if you intend to make more galling than the 
slavery of the blacks the slavery of the debtors of this 
country ; if the Democratic party, after you go home, 
endorses your action and makes your position its per- 
manent policy, I promise you that I will go out and 
serve my country and my God under some other name, 
even if I must go alone." 



THE RISE OF THE SILVER ISSUE 51 

But Mr. Bryan was not destined to be driven from 
the Democratic party. He returned to Washington 
to presistently fight the financial policy of the admin- 
istration until the Fifty-third Congress had ad- 
journed. The withdrawal of the greenbacks, the 
granting of additional privileges to national banks, 
the Hothschild-Morgan gold-bond contract — these he 
opposed with the full measure of his mental and physi- 
cal powers. In the meantime the Silver Democrats 
began the w^ork of organization and propaganda in 
every state in the Union. In 1894 Bryan triumphed 
over his enemies in Nebraska in a convention whose 
platform declared, ''We favor the immediate restora- 
tion of the free and unlimited coinage of gold and 
silver at the present ratio of 16 to 1, without waiting 
for the aid or consent of any other nation on earth.'' 
The Gold Democrats bolted the platform and the 
ticket. And until the last delegate was elected to the 
National convention which was to meet at Chicago 
in Julv, 1896, the Silver Democrats continued every- 
where their efforts. They fought boldly and out- 
spokenly against the administration they had helped 
to elect, and which was nominally Democratic. The 
result of their fight was the instruction of almost two- 
thirds of the delegates for an unambiguous free silver 
plank, with a certainty that the Gold Democrats, 
headed by President Cleveland, Secretary of the 
Treasury Carlisle, and hundreds of the leaders of the 
party, would bolt the action of the convention. 

Thus torn and rent by dissentions, with little hope 



§^ WILLIAM JENNINGS BBXAN 

or prospect for success, the Democracy faced that re- 
markable convention which was to repudiate the ad- 
ministration itself had placed in power. 



THE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE 

(1896) 

In tlie fall of 1896, within the period of one hun- 
dred days, William J. Bryan traveled eighteen thou- 
sand miles. He delivered over six hundred speeches 
to crowds aggregating five millions of people. Re- 
duced to figures more readily comprehended, he 
averaged each day one hundred and eighty miles of 
railroad travel, interrupted by the stops necessary 
for the delivery of six speeches to crowds of over 
eight thousand each and fifty thousand in all. This 
was his personal service in the "first battle'^ for the 
restoration of bimetallism, acting as the standard 
bearer of three political parties. 

The great presidential campaign of 1896 was in 
many respects the most remarkable in the history of 
the United States. It turned upon an issue which 
was felt to be of transcending importance, and which 
aroused the elemental passions of the people in a 
manner probably never before witnessed in this 
country save in time of war. It was an issue forced 
by the voters themselves despite the unceasing efforts 
of the leading politicians of both great parties to keep 
it in the background. Beneath its shadow old party 
war cries died into silence ; old party differences were 
forgotten; old party lines were obliterated. As it 
existed in the hearts of men the issue had no name. 



54 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

Bimetallism ^yas discussed; monometallism was dis- 
cussed; these were the themes of public speakers, 
editors, and street corner gatherings when recourse 
was had to facts and argument. But when one par- 
tisan called his friend the enemy an "Anarchist !'' and 
when the latter retorted with the cry of ''Plutocrat," 
then there spoke in epithets the feelings which were 
stirring the American people, and which made the 
campaign significant. For the terms indicated that 
for the tirst time in the Republic founded on the doc- 
trine of equality, Lazarus at Dives' gate had raised the 
cry of injustice, whereat the rich man trembled. 

The Republican National convention met at St. 
Louis on June 16. William McKinley, of Ohio, was 
nominated for President and Garret A. Hobart, of 
New Jersey, for Vice-President. A platform was 
adopted declaring for the maintenance of ''the exist- 
ing gold standard" until bimetallism could be secured 
by international agreement, which the party was 
pledged to promote. The doctrine of a high protec- 
tive tariff was strongly insisted on. 

Against the financial plank of the platform there 
was waged a bitter, if hopeless, fight by the silver men 
of the West, under the honored leadership of United 
States Senator Henry M. Teller, of Colorado. On the 
adoption of the platform Senators Teller, Dubois, of 
Idaho, Pettigrew, of South Dakota, Cannon, of Utah, 
and Mantle, of Montana, with three congressmen and 
fifteen other delegates, walked out of the convention. 
They issued an address to the people declaring mone- 
tary reform to be imperative, that the deadly curse of 



THE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE 55 

falling prices might be averted. The dominant figure 
of this convention was Marcus A. Hanna, of Ohio, a 
millionaire coal and shipping magnate with large in- 
dustrial and commercial interests in various sections 
of the country. In taking charge of the campaign that 
resulted in McKinley's nomination he introduced his 
business methods into politics. He had conducted the 
canvass throughout along commercial lines. "He has 
been as smooth as olive oil and as stiff as Plymouth 
Rock," said the New York Sun, since recognized as 
President McKinley's personal organ. "He is a man- 
ager of men, a manipulator of events, such as you 
more frequently encounter in the back offices of the 
headquarters of financial and commercial centers 
than at district primaries or in the lobbies of conven- 
tion halls. There is no color or pretense of states- 
manship in his efforts; he seems utterly indifferent to 
political principles, and color-blind to policies, except 
as they figure as counters in his game. He can be ex 
tremely plausible and innocently deferential in his 
intercourse with others, or can flame out on proper 
occasion in an outburst of well-studied indignation. 
He is by turns a bluffer, a compromiser, a conciliator, 
and an immovable tyrant. Such men do not enter and 
revolutionize national politics for nothing. Now, 
what is Mark Hanna after?'' 

The question was soon answered. Mark Hanna be- 
came chairman of the National Republican committee, 
United States senator from Ohio, and the most power- 
ful, if not the all-powerful, influence behind the 
McKinley administration. His rapid rise to com- 



56 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

manding position and the unyielding manner in which 
he has utilized his power have furnished much argu- 
ment to such as are inclined to be pessimistic regard- 
ing the enduring qualities of republics. 

Early in July the Democratic National convention 
assembled in Chicago. Mr. Bryan, who had attended 
the St. Louis convention as editor-in-chief of the 
Omaha World-Herald, was here present as a delegate- 
at-large from Nebraska. Since the expiration of his 
second congressional term he had been active and un- 
wearying in the fight to capture the convention for 
free silver. As editor of the World-Herald he had 
contributed numerous utterances that were widely 
quoted by the silver press, and much of his time had 
been devoted to delivering speeches and lectures in the 
interests of bimetallism in almost every section of the 
country. He came to Chicago fresh from a Fourth 
of July debate at the Crete, Neb., Chautauqua, 
with Hon. John P. Irish, of California, Cleveland's 
collector of the port at San Francisco. Except a few 
intimate friends in Nebraska, who knew Bryan's 
capacities and ambitions, no man dreamed of the 
possibility of his nomination for the presidency. 
There were available, tried, and time-honored silver 
leaders, men who had been fighting the white metal's 
battles for a score of years, notable among whom were 
Richard P. Bland, of Missouri, and Henry M. Teller, 
of Colorado. One of these, it was generally believed, 
would be chosen to lead the forlorn hopes of a regener- 
ated but disrupted democracy. 

Mr. Bryan's nomination was the spontaneous 



THE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE 57 

tribute of the convention to those qualities that since 
have made him not famous only, but well-beloved. 
These qualities are honesty, courage, frankness, and 
sincerity. They had veritable life in every line and 
paragraph of his great speech defending the free silver 
plank of the platform, delivered in reply to the crafty- 
wise David B. Hill, of New York. Hill, skilled and 
experienced practical politician, had pleaded with the 
convention that it pay the usual tribute at the shrine 
of Janus. He had begged that the ignus fatuus "in- 
ternational bimetallism" be used to lure the friends 
of silver into voting the Democratic ticket. Nurtured 
and trained in the same school of politics as William 
McKinley, — the school whose graduates had for many 
years dominated all party conventions, — Hill started 
back in affright from the prospect of going before the 
people on a platform that was straightforward and 
unequivocal, with its various planks capable of but 
one construction. 

Mr. Bryan's speech was as bold and ringing as the 
platform which he spoke to defend, with its plank, 
written by himself, and twice utilized in Nebraska, 
demanding "the free and unlimited coinage of both 
gold and silver at the present legal ratio of 16 to 1, 
without waiting for the aid or consent of any other 
nation." 

The letter and spirit of that plank were such as 
the great majority of the convention were thoroughly 
in sympathy with. The result of the great silver 
propaganda of the two years preceding had been to 
send to the convention honest and sincere men with 



58 Yv^ILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

profound convictions and the courage to express 
them. To do this, they knew, would be revolutionary, 
even as had been the platforms on Avhich the Path- 
finder, Fremont, and the Liberator, Lincoln, ran. 
But the spirit of revolution from cant and equivoque 
was rife in that convention. Of that spirit William 
Jennings Bryan was the prophet. In a speech that 
thrilled into men's minds and hearts his defiance and 
contempt of the opportunists' policy, his own fearless 
confidence in the all-conquering power of truth, he 
stirred into an unrestrained tempest the long pent 
emotions of the delegates. When he had finished not 
only was the adoption of the i)latform by a vote of 
two to one assured, but the convention had found its 
leader whom it would commission to go forth to 
preach the old, old gospel of democracy, rescued from 
its years of sleep. The nature of ]Mr. Brj^an's speech 
may be gained from these brief extracts : 

^'When you (turning to the gold delegates) come 
before us and tell us we are about to disturb your 
business interests, Ave reply that you have disturbed 
our business interests by your course. We say to you 
that you have made the definition of a business man 
too limited in its application. The man who is em- 
ployed for wages is as much a business man as his 
employer ; the attorney in a country town is as much 
a business man as the corporation counsel in a great 
metropolis; the merchant at a cross-roads store is as 
much a business man as the merchant of New York; 
the farmer who goes forth in the morning and toils 
all day, who begins in the spring and toils all summer. 



THE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE 59 

and who, by the application of brain and muscle to 
the natural resources of the country, creates wealth, is 
as much a business man as the man who goes upon 
the board of trade and bets upon the price of grain : 
the miners who go down a thousand feet into the 
earth, or climb two thousand feet upon the cliffs, and 
bring forth from their hiding places the precious 
metals to be j^oured into the channels of trade are as 
much business men as the few financial magnates who, 
in a back room, corner the money of the world. AVe 
come to speak for this broader class of business men. 
^*Ali, my friends, we say not one word against those 
who live upon the Atlantic Coast, but the hardy 
pioneers who have braved all the dangers of the 
wilderness, who have made the desert to blossom as 
the rose, — the pioneers away out there (pointing to 
the west), who rear their children near to Nature's 
heart, where they can mingle their voices with the 
voices of the birds, out there where thev have erected 
schoolhouses for the education of their young, 
churches where they praise their Creator, and ceme- 
teries where rest the ashes of their dead — these peo- 
ple, we say, are as deserving of the consideration of 
our party as any people in this country. It is for 
these that we speak. We do not come as aggressors. 
Our war is not a war of conquest; we are fighting in 
defense of our homes, our families, and posterity. 
We have petitioned, and our petitions have been 
scorned; we have entreated, and our entreaties have 
been disregarded; we have begged, and they have 
mocked when our calamity came. We beg no longer; 



60 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

we entreat no more; we petition no more. We defy 
them. . . . 

"You come and tell lis that the great cities are in 
favor of the gold standard; we reply that the great 
cities rest upon our broad and fertile prairies. Burn 
down your cities and leave our farms, and your cities 
will spring up again as if by magic ; but destroy our 
farms and the grass will grow in the streets of every 
city in the country. . . . 

"My friends, we declare that this nation is able to 
legislate for its own people on every question, without 
waiting for the aid or consent of any other nation on 
earth. . . . It is the issue of 1776 over again. 
Our ancestors, when but three millions in number, 
had the courage to declare their political independ- 
ence of every other nation. Shall we, their descend- 
ents, when we have grown to seventy millions, declare 
that we are less independent than our forefathers? 
No, my friends, that will never be the verdict of our 
people. Therefore, we care not upon what lines the 
battle is fought. If they say bimetallism is good, but 
that we can not have it until other nations help us, 
we reply that, instead of having a gold standard be- 
cause England has, Ave will restore bimetallism, and 
then let England have bimetallism because the United 
States has it. If they dare come out in the open field 
and defend the gold standard as a good thing, we will 
fight them to the uttermost. Having behind us the 
producing masses of this nation and the world, sup- 
ported by the commercial interests, the laboring in- 
terest, and the toilers everywhere, we will answer 




SENATOR J. K. JONES 



THE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE ^1 

their demand for a gold standard by saying to them : 
You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this 
crown of thorns; you shall not crucify mankind upon 
a cross of gold/' 

Mr. Bryan was nominated for President on the fifth 
ballot by a well-nigh unanimous vote, save for the 162 
eastern delegates who, while holding their seats, 
sullenly refused to take any part in the proceedings. 
The demonstration following the nomination was even 
wilder and more prolonged than the memorable scene 
that marked the conclusion of his speech. 

For Vice-President Arthur Sewall, of Maine, was 
nominated. With this ticket, on a platform declaring 
for free silver, opposing the issue of bonds and na- 
tional bank currency, denouncing "government by in- 
junction," declaring for a low tariff, the Monroe 
doctrine, an income tax, and election of senators by 
a direct vote of the people, the democracy went before 
the country with a confidence and exuberance little 
anticipated before the convention met, and scarcely 
justified, as later proven, by the outcome. 

The Populist and Silver Republican conventions 
met in St. Louis late in July. The latter endorsed the 
nominees of the Chicago platform and made them 
their own. The populists, however, w^hile nominating 
Mr. Bryan, refused to nominate Mr. Sewall, naming 
for vice-president Thomas E. Watson, of Georgia. 

The gold democrats met at Indianapolis on Septem- 
ber 2, and nominated John M. Palmer, of Illinois, and 
Simon Buckner, of Kentucky, adopting the first gold 
standard platform ever presented to the people of the 



62 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

United States for endorsement. They called them- 
selves "National Democrats/' but in the outcome 
carried but one voting precinct in the nation, and that 
in Kansas. Four votes were cast in the precinct, two 
for Palmer, and one each for Bryan and McKinley. 
In the precinct in Illinois where Mr. Palmer himself, 
with his son and coachman, voted, not a single ballot 
was cast for the nominee of the "National Democ- 
racy." The fact was that a new party alignment was 
the inevitable result of the Chicago convention, the re- 
organized democracy gaining largely beyond the Mis- 
souri, but losing heavily east of the Mississippi and 
north of the Ohio. Hundreds of thousands of gold 
Democrats in the populous states, under the leader- 
ship of Grover Cleveland and John G. Carlisle, while 
pretending to support Palmer and Buckner, voted 
secretly for McKinley, whose platform was a virtual 
endorsement of the Cleveland administration, as 
Bryan's platform repudiated and condemned it. 

The campaign was remarkable not only for Bryan's 
wonderful campaigning, but for the bitter feeling that 
pervaded both organizations. The Kepublicans par- 
ticularly excelled in vituperative abuse. They began 
the use of billingsgate immediately after the Chicago 
convention had adjourned, applying to it such terms 
as "rabble," "wild Jacobins," "anarchists" and "re- 
pudiators," while Bryan was characterized as a "boy 
orator" "a demagogue" and "an ass." The Cleveland 
Leader said: 

"Bryan, with all his ignorance, his cheap demagogy, 
his intolerable gabble, his utter lack of common sense, 



THE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE 63 

and liis general incapacity in every direction, is a 
typical Democrat of the new school. His weapon is 
wind. His stock in trade is his mouth. Mr. McKin- 
ley's election — and we apologize to Mr. McKinley for 
printing his name in the same column with that of 
Bryan— is no longer in any doubt whatever. We 
salute the next President. As for Bryan, he is a can- 
didate for the political ash-heap." 

For efficient campaigning the two party organiza- 
tions were most unevenly matched. The Republican 
National committee, under the directing genius of 
Mark Hanna, assisted liberally by the thoroughly 
affrighted financial and corporation magnates of the 
East, had at its disposal millions of dollars with which 
to organize, pay for speakers and literature, reward 
the efforts of newspapers and party workers, and de- 
bauch the electorate in states thought to be doubtful. 
It had the assistance of almost the entire metropolitan 
press — with the notable exception of the New York 
Journal — and the nearly united influence of the large 
employers of labor. And even further, it had the 
pulpit and the religious press. As the ministers of 
Christ's gospel, in 1856, denounced and villified Gar- 
rison and Phillips, so in 1896 they hurled anathema 
maranatha at Bryan and Altgeld. Grave and rever- 
end preachers of national fame fulminated from their 
pulpits against "the accursed and treasonable aims'' 
of Bryan and his supporters, and denounced them 
as "enemies of mankind." Bishop John P. Newman, 
of the Methodist Episcopal Church, denounced Bryan 
as an "anarchist," and in the church conferences over 



64 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

which he presided urged the clergy to use their influ- 
ence to defeat the Democratic nominees. The Rev. 
Cortland Myers, in the Baptist Temple at Brooklyn, 
said that "the Chicago platform was made in hell.'^ 
Rev. Thomas Dixon, Jr., at the Academy of Music, 
New York, called Bryan "a mouthing, slobbering 
demagogue, whose patriotism is all in his jaw bone.'' 

Such were the cultured and scholarly contributions 
made by the noblest of professions to the discussion 
of an academic question of finance in the year of our 
Lord 1896. 

The Democratic committee had little money. It 
had the support of but few large newspapers. It was 
fighting the battles of a party that had been disrupted 
and rent in twain at the Chicago convention. In 
every state and almost every county of the Union the 
old local and national leaders of the party had de- 
serted, and the faithful but disorganized followers of 
Bryan had to be moulded anew into the likeness of 
an army. 

The one inspiration of the party was in its leader. 
The embodiment of faith, hope, and courage, tireless, 
indomitable, undismayed by the fearful odds against 
him, with the zeal of a crusader he undertook his 
mission of spreading the message of democracy 
through the length and breadth of the land. For 
three months, accompanied most of the time by Mrs. 
Bryan, he sped to and fro across the American con- 
tinent, an army of newspaper correspondents in his 
train, resting little and sleeping less, preaching the 
Chicago platform. His earnestness, his candor, his 



THE PEESIDENTTAL CANDIDATE 65 

boldness, the simplicity of his style, the homeliness of 
his illustrations, the convincing power of his argu- 
ment, the eloquence of his flights of oratory, and, 
above all, the pure and lovable character of the man 
as it impressed itself on those who met with him — 
these were the sparks that fired the hearts of men and 
left in his wake conviction fanned into enthusiasm all 
aflame. 

Yet, with all his efforts, despite a record of personal 
campaigning such as never before was seen in the 
recorded history of man, Mr. Bryan was defeated. 
The tremendous influence wielded by the great cor- 
porate interests, both by persuasion and by coercion, 
were such as no man and no idea could overcome. 

The popular vote stood 7,107,822 for McKinley and 
6,511,073 for Bryan. Of the electoral votes McKinley 
received 271 and Bryan 176, the solid South and al- 
most solid West going Democratic, while every state 
north of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi went 
Republican. 

Immediately after the result was assured Mr. 
Bryan telegraphed Mr. McKinley as follows: "Hon. 
Wm. McKinley^ Canton^ Ohio — Senator Jones has 
just info-rmed me that the returns indicate your elec- 
tion, and I hasten to extend my congratulations. We 
have submitted the issue to the American people and 
their will is law.— W. J. Bryan.'' 

Mr. McKinley responded : "Hon. W. J. Bryan, Lin- 
coln, Neb. — I acknowledge the receipt of your courte- 
ous message of congratulation with thanks, and beg 



66 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

you will receive my best wishes for your liealtli and 
happiness — William McKinley/-' 

While Mr. Bryan and his party accepted defeat 
thus gracefully, victory seemed to have redoubled the 
venom of the opposition. This post-election utterance 
of the New York Tribune, founded by Horace Greeley, 
and then and now edited by ex- Vice-President White- 
law Reid, will serve to close this chapter in the same 
gentle spirit which marked the close of that memor- 
able campaign : 

'"''good RIDDANCE 

"There are some movements so base, some causes 
so depraved, that neither victory can justify them nor 
defeat entitle them to commiseration. Such a cause 
was that which was vanquished yesterday, by the 
favor of God and the ballots of the American people. 
While it was active and menacing, it was unsparingly 
denounced and revealed as what it was, in all its 
hideous deformity. Now that it is crushed out of the 
very semblance of being, there is no reason why such 
judgment of it should be revised. The thing was con- 
ceived in iniquity and was brought forth in sin. It 
had its origin in a malicious conspiracy against the 
honor and integrity of the nation. It gained such 
monstrous growth as it enjoyed from an assiduous 
culture of the basest passions of the least worthy 
members of the community. It has been defeated and 
destroyed, because right is right and God is God. Its 
nominal head was worthy of the cause. Nominal, be- 
cause the wretched, rattle-pated boy, posing in vapid 
vanity and mouthing resounding rottenness, was not 



THE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE 67 

the real leader of that league of hell. He was only a 
puppet in the blood-imbued hands of Altgeld, the an- 
archist, and Debs, the revolutionist, and other desper- 
ados of that stripe. But he was a willing puppet, 
Bryan was, willing and eager. Not one of his masters 
was more apt at lies and forgeries and blasphemies 
and all the nameless iniquities of that campaign 
against the Ten Commandments. He goes down with 
the cause, and must abide with it in the history of 
infamy. He had less provocation than Benedict 
Arnold, less intellectual force than Aaron Burr, less 
manliness and courage than Jefferson Davis. He was 
the rival of them all in deliberate wickedness and 
treason to the Republic. His name belongs with 
theirs, neither the most brilliant nor the least hateful 
in the list. 

"Good riddance to it all, to conspiracy and con- 
spirators, and to the foul menace of repudiation and 
anarchy against the honor and life of the Republic. 
The people have dismissed it with no uncertain tones. 
Hereafter let there be whatever controversies men 
may please about the tariff, about the currency, about 
the Monroe doctrine, and all the rest. But let there 
never again be a proposition to repeal the moral law, 
to garble the Constitution, and to replace the Stars 
and Stripes with the red rag of anarchy. On those 
other topics honest men may honestly differ, in full 
loyalty to the Republic. On these latter there is no 
room for two opinions, save in the minds of traitors, 
knaves, and fools.'' 



NEW ISSUES 

The half decade between 1895 and 1900 may justly 
be considered one of the most important in American 
history. It witnessed the fiercest battle between po- 
litical parties ever fought over the question of finance, 
— a contest exceeding in bitterness and the general 
participation of the people of the United States 
therein even the great struggle in which Andrew Jack- 
son and Nicholas Biddle were the opposing leaders. 
And, further, as the outcome of the war with Spain, 
it saw the birth and growth of an issue theretofore 
alien to American soil and portentous for its ultimate 
influence over the form and structure of our govern- 
ment. It was at once recognized as an issue over- 
shadowing in its importance, and in the face of the 
greater danger the mutual fears of the friends of gold 
and the friends of silver were laid away in one com- 
mon sepulchre. 

On the part of the Democratic party the wraith of 
imperialism hovering over the Republic was recog- 
nized as the hideous and supreme exhalation from the 
poison swamp of plutocracy from which high tariff, 
trusts, and a gold standard had already sprung. 
Through all these policies, asserted the Democracy, 
through its recognized leader, Mr. Bryan, ran the 
common purpose of exalting the dollar and debasing 
the man. The Republican party hesitated long to 



NEW ISSUES 69 

recognize and admit the new issue, and when it finally 
took up the gage of battle it was on the declaration 
that a colonial policy, with alien and subject races 
under its dominion, had become the "manifest des- 
tiny'^ of the United States. 

The cruelties and severities of General Weyler, the 
commander of the Spanish forces in Cuba, toward the 
insurrectionists who were in arms against Spain's au- 
thority, early in Mr. McKinley's administration 
aroused the indignation of the American people. The 
fact that the Cubans were bravely fighting for liberty, 
that their rebellion was against the exactions of an 
old world monarchy, even as ours had been, won them 
an instinctive sympathy that grew stronger each day 
and that finally swept like a tidal wave into the 
cabinet meetings at Washington, bearing the demands 
of the people of the United States for the intervention 
of our government in Cuba's behalf. 

On December 6, 1897, in his message to Congress, 
the President discussed the Cuban question at some 
length, arguing against any interference by the 
United States, on the ground that "a hopeful change 
has supervened in the policy of Spain toward Cuba." 
Speaking of the possible future relations between 
this country and Cuba, the President used the words 
since so widely quoted against his subsequent policy 
in the Philippines : "I speak not of forcible annexa- 
tion, for that is not to be thought of. That, by our 
code of morality, would be criminal aggression." 

The evident reluctance of the administration to 
recognize Cuban independence was shortly after 



70 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

forced to give way to the compelling power of public 
opinion. On February 15, 1898, by the explosion of a 
submarine mine, the Maine, a first-class United States 
battleship, was destroyed in Havana harbor, with a 
loss of 248 officers and men. A fierce hatred for Spain 
was thereby added to the sympathy for Cuba, and 
war, or the abandonment of Cuba by Spain, became 
inevitable. A month after the destruction of the 
Maine Congress voted the President |50,000,000 to be 
used in the National defense. On April 11, Presi- 
dent McKinley, in a message to Congress exhaustively 
reviewed the Cuban complications, disclaiming a 
policy of annexation and arguing for neutral inter- 
vention to enforce peace and secure for the Cubans 
a stable government. On the 20th, Congress declared 
Cuba to be free and independent, demanded that 
Spain relinquish her claim of authority, and author- 
ized the President to use the land and naval forces of 
the United States to enforce the demand. 

Congress expressly declared: "The United States 
hereby disclaims any disposition or intention to ex- 
ercise sovereignty, jurisdiction, or control over said 
island, except for the pacification thereof, and asserts 
its determination, when that is accomplished, to leave 
the government and control of the island to its people. 

From such a lofty plane the United States entered 
into that brief but glorious combat with Spain that 
has rightly been called "the war for humanity.^' On 
April 23, the President called for 125,000 volunteers. 
One of the first who offered the President his services^ 
in the war for ^Vuha libre^' was William J. Bryanj 



NEW ISSUES '3'! 

Long before, Mr. Bryan had declared for intervention, 
saying, "Humanity demands that we shall act. Cuba 
lies within sight of our shores and the sufferings of 
her people can not be ignored unless we, as a nation, 
have become so engrossed in money-making as to be 
indifferent to distress." Mr. Bryan's proffer was 
ignored by the President. He was later commissioned \ 
by Governor Holcomb, of Nebraska, to raise the Third I 
Nebraska regiment of volunteers. This he did, be- / 
coming the colonel of the regiment. General Victor/ 
Vifquain, of Lincoln, a gallant and distinguished 
veteran of the Civil war was made lieutenant-colonel. 
In the meantime Admiral George Dewey command- 
ing the United States Asiatic fleet, had set forth from 
Hong Kong, engaged the Spanish fleet in Manila bay 
on May 1, and completely demolished it. Manila was 
the capital of the entire Philippine archipelago, with 
its eight to ten million inhabitants, then nominally 
under Spanish sovereignty. The Filipinos themselves, 
of whom Admiral Dewey said, "these people are far 
superior in their intelligence and more capable of 
self-government than the natives of Cuba," were al- 
ready in successful revolt against Spain, battling 
bravely for their independence. Under the leadership 
of General Aguinaldo, and at the invitation of Dewey 
and the representatives of the United States state 
department, the insurgents cooperated as allies with 
the American forces from the time of Dewey's victory 
until the surrender of Manila. They were furnished 
arms and ammunition by Dewey, and were led to be- 
lieve that their own independence would be assured 



72 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

on the expulsion of Spain from the archipelago. 
During this time they established a successful and 
orderly civil government throughout the greater part 
of the islands. But at home the United States govern- 
ment was already beginning to indicate it3 intention 
not to grant to the Filipinos, at the conclusion of the 
war, the same liberty and self-government as had been 
promised the Cubans. Rather, it was becoming evi- 
dent it was the purpose of Mr. McKinley and his 
advisers to hold the islands as tributary territory, 
subject to United States' jurisdiction, while, at the 
same time, the inhabitants should be denied the "in- 
alienable rights" proclaimed by the Declaration of 
Independence and guaranteed by our Constitution. 

The American people were at a loss what to make 
of the situation. Their eyes dazzled by the glories of 
war and conquest, their cupidity appealed to by the 
vaunted richness of the "new possessions,'' there still 
was latent in their hearts the love for liberty as "the 
heritage of all men in all lands everywhere," and an 
unspoken fear of incorporating the government of 
alien and subject races as an integral portion of the 
scheme of American democracy. 

Such was the situation when, at Omaha, Neb., 
on June 14, 1898, Colonel W. J. Bryan, shortly before 
the muster-in of his regiment into the service of the 
government, sounded the first note of warning against 
the insidious dangers of imperialism ; the first ringing 
appeal to the Republic to remain true to its principles, 
its traditions, and its high ideals. In taking his stand 
on this great question Mr. Bryan acted with the bold- 



NEW ISSUES 73 

ness that has ever characterized him when matters of 
principle were at stake. He spoke against the earnest 
advice of numerous political friends, who warned 
him he was taking the unpopular side, and that his 
mistake would cost him his political life. Mr. Bryan, 
because he believed the policy of the administration to 
be radically wrong, paid no heed to all the well-meant 
protestations, but earnestly w^arned the people against 
the abandonment of the doctrines of the fathers of the 
Republic. These were his words : 

"History will vindicate the position taken by the 
United States in the war with Spain. In saying this 
I assume that the principles which were invoked in 
the inauguration of the war will be observed in its 
prosecution and conclusion. If a war undertaken 
for the sake of humanity degenerates into a war of 
conquest we shall find it difficult to meet the charge of 
having added hypocrisy to greed. Is our national 
character so weak that we can not withstand the temp- 
tation to appropriate the first piece of land that comes 
within our reach? 

"To inflict upon the enemy all possible harm is 
legitimate warfare, but shall we contemplate a 
scheme for the colonization of the Orient merely be- 
cause our fleet won a remarkable victory in the harbor 
at Manila? 

"Our guns destroyed a Spanish fleet, but can they 
destroy that self-evident truth that governments de- 
rive their just powers — not from force — but from the 
consent of the governed? 

"Shall we abandon a just resistance to European 



74 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

encroachment upon the western hemisphere, in order 
to mingle in the controversies of Europe and Asia? 

"Nebraska, standing midway between the oceans, 
will contribute her full share toward the protection of 
our sea coast ; her sons will support the flag at home 
and abroad, w^herever the honor and the interests of 
the nation may require. Nebraska will hold up the 
hands of the government while the battle rages, and 
when the war clouds roll aw^ay her voice will be heard 
pleading for the maintenance of those ideas which in- 
spired the founders of our government and gave the 
nation its proud eminence among the nations of the 
earth. 

"If others turn to thoughts of aggrandizment, and 
yield allegience to those who clothe land covetousness 
in the attractive garb of ^national destiny,' the people 
of Nebraska will, if I mistake not their sentiments, 
plant themselves upon the disclaimer entered by Con- 
gress, and expect that good faith shall characterize 
the making of peace as it did the beginning of war. 

"Goldsmith calls upon statesmen : 

*To judge how wide the limits stand 
Betwixt a splendid and a happy land.' 

If some dream of the splendors of a heterogeneous em- 
pire encircling the globe, we shall be content to aid in 
bringing enduring happiness to a homogeneous peo- 
ple, consecrated to the purpose of maintaining ^a gov- 
ernment of the people, by the people, and for the 
people.' " 

Shortly after this speech Colonel Bryan left Ne- 
braska with his regiment to go into camp at Tampa, 



NEW ISSUES .75 

Florida, awaiting orders to Cuba or Porto Rico. Like 
most of the other regiments called out by President 
McKinley, Colonel Bryan's was not destined ever to 
come in sight of a battlefield. The amazing fact is 
that while the enormous number of 274,717 soldiers 
were mustered into service, only 54,000 ever left 
American soil up to the time the protocol was signed, 
August 12, 1898. The 220,000 were left through the 
sweltering summer months in unsanitary camps to 
broil under a southern sun. From May 1 to Septem- 
ber 30, but 280 American soldiers were killed in 
battle, while 2,565 died in fever-stricken camps 
pitched in malarial swamps. The entire nation was 
aroused to the highest pitch of indignation, and the 
press, without regard to party, joined in denouncing 
the careless, cruel, and incompetent treatment of the 
volunteer soldier. 

The New York Herald voiced the general feeling 
when it said : " 'Infamous' is the only word to describe 
the treatment that has been inflicted upon our pat- 
riotic soldiers, and under which, despite the indig- 
nant outbursts of a horror-stricken people, thou- 
sands of them are still suffering to-day." The Herald 
further declared the soldiers to be "the victims of 
job-and-rob politicians and contractors, and of 
criminally incompetent and heartlessly indifferent 
ofiBcials," 

For almost six months Colonel Bryan remained 
with his regiment in camp. The quarters, the sanita- 
tive conditions, and the general arrangements of the 
"Third Nebraska" were the pride of the army. Colonel 



76 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

Bryan was at once "guide, counselor, and friend" to 
his men, winning the almost idolatrous love of each 
and all of them. He gave lavishly of his meager 
funds to secure the comfort of the sick and maintain 
the health of the strong. His days and nights were 
devoted to the service of the regiment, and more than 
one poor boy, dying of fever far from the wind-swept 
Nebraska prairies, passed away holding his Colonel's 
hand and breathing into his Colonel's ear the last 
faltering message of farewell to loved ones at home. 
In joining the volunteer army, as when he delivered 
the first anti-imperialist speech. Colonel Bryan had 
acted against the advice of many of his closest per- 
sonal and political friends. Despite his decisive de- 
feat for the presidency in 1896, he had not only main- 
tained but even strengthened his position as the 
recognized leader of the Democratic party and its 
allies. Undaunted by the result of the campaign, 
he had almost immediately resumed the fight for 
bimetallism. He had published a book reviewing the 
contest under the suggestive and defiant title "The 
First Battle." He had taken to the lecture platform 
and to the political hustings, vigorously, hopefully, 
and earnestly propagating the principles of democ- 
racy, unwavering, unwearying, and undisturbed by 
the general depression of his followers and as gen- 
eral exultation of his opponents. He was the incar- 
nation of the spirit of conservative reform, and all 
parties had come to regard him as the prophet and 
supreme leader of the new movement back to Jeffer- 
sonian principles. His friends feared to have him 







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NEW ISSUES 77 

accept a commission, not only on the ground tliat Ms 
doing so might later compel his silence at a time 
when his voice ought to be heard, but more largely 
because they dreaded the possibility of having his 
motive impugned. It was evident to them, as to 
Colonel Bryan himself, that by taking up the role of 
colonel of a volunteer regiment, he had much to risk 
and lose, and little, if anything, to gain. But the 
Democratic leader was not to be dissuaded. Content 
in his own knowledge that his motive was worthy and 
patriotic, he assumed and bore unostentatiously and 
yet with dignity the office of military leader of 1,300 
of his Nebraska friends and neighbors. He remained 
faithfully with his regiment, living the slow and 
tedious life of the camp, until the treaty of peace was 
signed with Spain in December, 1898. That treaty 
provided not only for the cession of Porto Rico to the 
United States and Spanish relinquishment of all 
claim to sovereignty over Cuba, but further for the 
turning over of the Philippine Islands to the United 
States on the payment of $20,000,000. This last con- 
cession was wrung from Spain by the insistent and 
uncompromising demand of the American Peace Com- 
missioners, under instructions from the state depart- 
ment at Washington. 

Shortly after the treaty was signed. President Mc- 
Kinley blasted the fond hopes for independence that 
had been planted in the Filipinos' breasts by issuing 
this proclamation: 

"With the signature of the treaty of peace between 
the United States and Spain by their respective pleni- 



78 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

potentiaries at Paris on the tenth instant, and as the 
result of the victories of American arms, the future 
control, disposition, and government of the Philip- 
pine Islands are ceded to the United States. In ful- 
filment of the rights of sovereignty thus acquired, and 
the responsible obligations of government thus as- 
sumed, the actual occupation and administration of 
the entire group of the Philippine Islands become 
immediately necessary, and the military government 
heretofore maintained by the United States in the 
city, harbor, and bay of Manila is to be extended with 
all possible dispatch to the whole of the ceded 
territory." 

Prior to this time, and later, the President ex- 
plained his position on the Philippine question, and 
we quote from him at some length. 

At Chicago, in October, 1898, he said : "My country- 
men, the currents of destiny flow through the hearts 
of the people. Who will check them? Who will di- 
vert them? Who will stop them? And the move- 
ments of men, planned and designed by the Master 
of men, will never be interrupted by the American 

people." 

At the Atlanta (Ga.) Peace Jubilee in December 
of the same year, he said: "That [the American] flag 
has been planted in two hemispheres, and there it 
remains, the symbol of liberty and law^, of peace and 
progress. Who will withhold it from the people over 
whom it floats its protecting folds? Who will haul it 
down?" 

At Savannah, a day or two later he said : "If, fol- 



NEW ISSUES 79 

lowing the clear precepts of duty, territory falls to 
us, and the welfare of an alien people requires our 
guidance and protection, who will shrink from the 
responsibility, grave though it may be? Can we leave 
these people who, by the fortunes of war and our own 
acts, are helpless and without government, to chaos 
and anarchy after we have destroyed the only govern- 
ment that they had?'' 

At the Home Market Club, in Boston, on February 
16, 1899, he explained himself more fully, saying: 
"Our concern was not for territory or trade or empire, 
but for the people whose interests and destiny, with- 
out our willing it, had been put in our hands. It was 
with this feeling that from the first day to the last 
not one word or line went from the Executive in 
Washington to our military and naval commanders 
at Manila or to our Peace Commissioners at Paris that 
did not put as the sole purpose to be kept in mind, 
first, after the success of our arms and the mainte- 
nance of our own honor, the welfare and happiness 
and the rights of the inhabitants of the Philippine 
Islands. Did we need their consent to perform a 
great act for humanity? If we can benefit these re- 
mote peoples, who will object? If, in the years of the 
future, they are established in government under law 
and liberty, who will regret our perils and sacrifices? 
Who will not rejoice in our heroism and humanity?'' 

One more quotation. At Minneapolis, October 12, 
1899, President McKinley delivered himself of this ut- 
terance: "That Congress will provide for them [the 
Filipinos] a government which will bring them bless- 



80 .WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

ings, which will promote their material interests, as 
well as advance their people in the paths of civiliza- 
tion and intelligence, I confidently believe.'' 

With such phrase-making as this, concealing in son- 
orous periods the most un-American of sentiments, 
Colonel Bryan's utterance, delivered immediately 
after he had resigned his commission, stands out in 
bold and pleasing relief : "I may be in error, but in 
my judgment our nation is in greater danger just now 
than Cuba. Our people defended Cuba against for- 
eign arms ; now they must defend themselves and their 
country against a foreign idea — the colonial idea of 
European nations. Heretofore greed has perverted 
the government and used its instrumentalities for pri- 
vate gains, but now the very foundation principles of 
our government are assaulted. Our nation must give 
up any intention of entering upon a colonial policy, 
such as is now pursued by European countries, or it 
must abandon the doctrine that governments derive 
their just powers from the consent of the governed. 
To borrow a Bible quotation ^A house divided 
against itself can not stand.' Paraphrasing Lincoln's 
declaration, I may add that this nation can not en- 
dure half republic and half colony, half free and half 
vassal. Our form of government, our traditions, our 
present interests, and our future welfare, all forbid 
our entering upon a career of conquest. . . . 

^'Sorne think the fight should be made against ratifi- 
cation of the treaty, but I would prefer another plan. 
If the treaty is rejected, negotiations must be re- 
newed, and instead of settling the question according 



NEW ISSUES 81 

to our ideas we must settle it by diplomacy, with the 
possibility of international complications. It will be 
easier, I think, to end the war at once by ratifying 
the treaty and then deal with the subject in our own 
way. The issue can be presented directly by a resolu- 
tion of Congress declaring the policy of the nation 
upon this subject. The President in his message says 
that our only purpose in taking possession of Cuba 
is to establish a stable government and then turn that 
government over to the people of Cuba. Congress 
could reaffirm this purpose in regard to Cuba, and 
assert the same purpose in regard to the Philippines 
and Porto Rico. Such a resolution would make a 
clear-cut issue between the doctrine of self-govern- 
ment and the doctrine of imperialism. We should re- 
serve a harbor and coaling station in Porto Rico and 
the Philippines in return for services rendered, and I 
think we would be justified in asking the same con- 
cession from Cuba. 

"In the case of Porto Rico, where the people have as 
yet expressed no desire for independent government, 
we might with propriety declare our willingness to 
annex the island, if the citizens desire annexation, 
but the Philippines are too far away and their people 
too different from ours to be annexed to the United 
States, even if they desired it." 

In making this statement, and in his subsequent 
active support of the treaty, Mr. Bryan's course was 
again opposed to the wishes and advice of many of 
his close political friends. In fact, before Mr. Bryan 
took his firm stand probably the majority of Demo- 



82 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

cratic leaders in and out of Congress were opposed 
to the ratification of the treaty because of its Philip- 
pine clause. But Mr. Bryan, while as strongly op- 
posed to this clause as anyone, was anxious to see the 
war finally ended. He knew that for the Senate to re- 
ject the treaty would prolong the war perhaps a year 
or more, and, further, that it might lead to endless 
and unpleasant complications. Once the war was 
ended, he held, the American people themselves could 
dispose of the Philippine question. 

Largely owing to the aid extended the administra- 
tion by Mr. Bryan, the treaty was ratified by the 
Senate. Those senators who were opposed to the im- 
perial policy of President McKinley supported the 
"Bacon resolution" as a declaration of this nation's 
purpose toward the Philippines and Filipinos. This 
resolution declared: 

"The United States hereby disclaim any disposition 
or intention to exercise permanent sovereignty, juris- 
diction, or control over said islands, and assert their 
determination, w^hen a stable and independent govern- 
ment shall have been erected therein, entitled in the 
judgment of the government of the United States to 
recognition as such, to transfer to said government, 
upon terms which shall be reasonable and just, all 
rights secured under the cession by Spain, and to 
thereupon leave the government and control of the 
islands to their people." 

The Democratic policy, as outlined by Mr. Bryan, 
'was the support of the treaty and of the foregoing 
resolution. The treaty wsls ratified, but the resolu- 



•h 



NEW ISSUES 83 

tion, though supported by practically the solid Demo- 
cratic, Populist, and Silver Republican strength in 
the Senate, and by a number of Republican senators 
who were opposed to the imperial policy, was defeated 
by the deciding vote of Vice-President Hobart. Had 
the resolution been adopted, and the Philippines been 
given the same promise of independence and self-gov- 
ernment as had already been given Cuba, it is believed 
that the long, bloody, and costly war in the Philippine 
Islands might have been averted, and the abandoned 
old-world heresy of the right of one man to rule an- 
other without that other's consent would not now 
have regained a footing on the soil of the great 
American Republic. 

In the meantime the President's proclamation of 
December 21, 1898, to the Filipinos, asserting the 
sovereignty of the United States over them and theirs 
had provoked a veritable hurricane of indignation 
among that people. 

The characteristic that distinguishes the Filipinos 
from all other Asiatic races is their fierce, inherent 
love for liberty. For three hundred years they had 
been intermittently battling \yith the Spaniard to 
regain what they had lost, and the palm of victory 
was within their eager reach on the day that Dewey's 
guns first thundered across Manila bay. Knowing as 
they did that the United States had gone to war to 
secure liberty for the Cubans, why should they doubt 
the securing of their own liberty as well? 

The President's proclamation came like a thunder 
clap. General Otis, who was commander-in-chief of 



84 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

the American forces in the Philippines, reported its 
effect as follows : 

"Aguinaldo met the proclamation by a counter one 
in which he indignantly protested against the claim of 
sovereignty by the United States in the islands, which 
really had been conquered from the Spaniards 
through the blood and treasure of his countrymen, and 
abused me for my assumption of the title of military 
governor. Even the women of Cavite province, in a 
document numerously signed by them, gave me to un- 
derstand that after all the men are killed off they are 
prepared to shed their patriotic blood for the liberty 
and independence of their country/' 

The revulsion was complete. Before the proclama- 
tion was issued, it is true, there had been growing 
among the Filipinos a feeling of distrust of the Ameri- 
cans, and of doubt whether, after all, they were to be 
conceded their independence. For, at the surrender 
of Manila, although its capture had been impossible 
without the aid of the insurgents, they were studi- 
ously excluded from any share of the honor, and thus 
given the first intimation of the final treachery of the 
administration. Later the Filipinos were refused a 
hearing at Washington, and again before the Peace 
Commission which was to dispose of them like 
chattels. 

Actual hostilities broke out February 4, 1899, and 
are thus referred to by President McKinley in his 
message to Congress December 4, 1899 : "The aggres- 
sion of the Filipinos continually increased, until 
finally, just before the time set by the Senate of the 



NEW ISSUES 85 

United States for a vote upon the treaty, an attack, 
evidently prepared in advance, was made all along 
the American lines, which resulted in a terribly de- 
structive and sanguinary repulse of the insurgents." 

The report of General Otis, reads as follows (page 
96) : "The battle of Manila commenced at half past 
eight o'clock, on the evening of February 4 (1899), 
and continued until five o'clock the next evening. The 
engagement was strictly defensive on the part of the 
insurgents, and one of vigorous attack by our forces." 

Senator Hoar, of Massachusetts, in a letter to the 
Springfield (Mass.) Republican^ January 11, 1900), 
is responsible for this statement regarding the first 
battle: "The outbreak of hostilities was not their 
fault, but ours. We fired upon them first. The fire 
was returned from their lines. Thereupon it was re- 
turned again from us, and several Filipinos were 
killed. As soon as Aguinaldo heard of it he sent a 
message to General Otis saying that the firing was 
without his knowledge and against his will; that he 
deplored it, and that he desired hostilities to cease, 
and would withdraw his troops to any distance Gen- 
eral Otis should desire. To which the American gen- 
eral replied that, as the firing had begun, it must 
go on." 

Thus began the War in the Philippine Islands. It 
has cost thousands of lives and millions of treasure. 
It has burned the homes and uprooted the fields of a 
frugal, intelligent, and industrious people in whose 
minds and hearts have been seared the ringing words 
of Patrick Henry : "Give me liberty or give me death !" 



86 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

It has not brought to the United States either riches 
or glory, but, on the contrary, lost to us much in 
taxes on our people, more in the death of our youth, 
and most of all in the sullying of the noble and lofty 
ideals which animated the Fathers of the Republic 
and made their lives sublime. An American soldier 
writing to the Minneapolis Times, in describing a 
captured city, thus simply sets forth the enormity of 
our national offense : 

^^Every inhabitant had left Norzagaray, and no 
article of value remained behind. The place had 
probably been the home of fifteen hundred or two 
thousand people, and was pleasantly situated on a 
clear mountain stream in which a bath was most re- 
freshing. It was not a city of apparent wealth, but in 
many houses were found evidences of education. In a 
building which probably had been used as a school- 
house were found a number of books, and a variety of 
exercises written by childish hands. Pinned to a 
crucifix was a paper upon which was written the fol- 
lowing in Spanish : ^American soldiers — How can you 
hope mercy from Him when you are slaughtering a 
people fighting for their liberty, and driving us from 
the homes which are justly ours?' On a table was a 
large globe w^hich did not give Minneapolis, but had 
San Pablo (St. Paul) as the capital of Minnesota. 
On a rude blackboard were a number of sentences, 
which indicated that the teacher had recently been 
giving lessons in the history of the American 
revolution." 

The demoralizing effect of this war against liberty 



NEW ISSUSS 87 

on the American conscience became early apparent. 
If it were permissible to make war on the Filipinos 
because they would not yield to our government, it 
was no far cry to withhold from the Porto Ricans the 
protecting aegis of the Constitution, to levy a dis- 
criminating tariff against them, and to tax them with- 
out their consent. And it of course became impossi- 
ble for the United States to express sympathy for the 
Boers in their war against British aggression, or even 
to maintain neutrality between the two. As a conse- 
quence horses, mules, arms, and ammunition were 
permitted to be freely shipped from our ports for the 
use of British soldiers, while British ships were per- 
mitted to intercept and capture American ships laden 
with American breadstuffs, when consigned to the 
Boers. In fact, an "Anglo-Saxon alliance'^ was more 
than hinted at by John Hay, then United States Am- 
bassador to Great Britain, and later Secretary of 
State, when he said at London, on April 20, 1898, 
speaking of England and the United States : 

"The good understanding between us is based on 
something deeper than mere expediency. All who 
think can not but see that there is a sanction like that 
of religion which binds us in partnership in the serious 
work of the world. We are bound by ties we did not 
forge, and that we can not break. We are joint minis- 
ters in the sacred work of freedom and progress, 
charged with duties we can not evade by the imposi- 
tion of irresistible hands." 

To this sentiment Joseph Chamberlain, the British 



88 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

Secretary of the Colonies, replied in kind on May 13, 
at Birmingham, saying : 

"I would go so far as to say that, terrible as war 
may be, even war itself would be cheaply purchased 
if, in a great and noble cause, the Stars and Stripes 
and the Union Jack should wave together over an 
Anglo-Saxon alliance. At the present time these two 
great nations understand each other better than they 
ever have done, since, over a century ago, they were 
separated by the blunder of a British government." 

So we come to the close of the recital of the most 

salient events which gave rise to the greatest issue 

save that of independence, and later, of slavery, with 

which the American people have ever stood face to 

face. 

Contemporaneous with the growth of the question 

of imperialism, and allied to it, another great issue 
arose, — the problem of the trusts. 

A "trust" may be defined as an industrial combina- 
tion of such huge proportions as to enable it not only 
arbitrarily to fix the price of the finished product in 
which it deals, through the stifling of competition, 
but frequently to determine alone the price of the 
raw material it uses and to fix the rate of wages of 
those whom it employs. Of these great and dangerous 
combinations there were formed, during the years 
1897 to 1900, a number exceeding all those already in 
existence. That this was permitted to be done with 
the Sherman anti-trust law on the Federal statute 
books has puzzled many. Its explanation may be 
found in the following candid admission made by Dr. 
Albert Shaw in the Review of Reviews for February, 
1897 : 



NEW ISSUES 89 

"The great sound-money campaign of 1896 was car- 
ried on by money contributed by corporations — money 
voted by the directors out of tlie funds held by them 
in trust for the stockholders. Nobody, probably, 
would even care to deny that this is literally the 
truth." 

When the "great sound money campaign" was con- 
cluded, it was but fair, of course, that those who had 
given so lavishly should be allowed to replenish their 
depleted coffers. And so neither anti-trust laws, su- 
preme court decisions, nor the cry of protest rising 
from the people was allowed to stand in the way of 
those generous corporations to whom President Mc- 
Kinley owed so much. 

In the last six months of 1898 the movement toward 
centralization that meant monopoly was most alarm- 
ingly pronounced. During this time there were filed 
articles of incorporation by more than one hundred 
companies of abnormal capitalization. The most im- 
portant trusts were : capital 

Gas trusts f 432,771,000 

Steel and iron 347,650,000 

Coal combines 161,000,000 

Oil trusts 153,000,000 

Flour trust 150,000,000 

Electrical combinations 139,327,000 

Sugar 115,000,000 

Cigarettes and tobacco 108,500,000 

Alcoholic 67,300,000 

Telephone 56,700,000 

Miscellaneous 1,349,250,000 

12,717,768,000 



90 WILLIAM JENNINGS BEYAN 

Among those classed as "miscellaneous" were trusts 
in leather, starch, lumber, rubber, dressed beef, lead, 
knit goods, window glass, crockery, furniture, crack- 
ers, sheet copper, paper, acids and chemicals, wall 
paper, typewriters, axes, bolts and nuts, salt, saws, 
rope, twine, thread, stock yards, matches, refrigera- 
tors, potteries, marbles, packing and provisions. 

After the formation of each trust the first step was 
almost invariably to limit production by shutting 
down a portion of the mills controlled by the combi- 
nation, thus reducing the number of wage earners. 
And almost as invariably the next step was to increase 
prices. By thus reducing expenses and increasing 
receipts the result was, though much of the trust prop- 
erty had been put in at an enormously inflated valua- 
tion, the watered stock yet earned exceedingly large 
dividends. The evil was not only that these unnatural 
dividends were earned at the expense of the laborer 
and the consumer, but that concentration of profits 
was leading to congestion of capital in certain sec- 
tions of the country at the expense of other sections. 

The great friend and helper of the trust-promoter 
was, of course, the high protective tariff. Without 
the tariff, to shut out competition from abroad, it 
would be impossible for the domestic concerns to form 
a close corporation and arbitrarily to fix prices. But 
Congress, instead of attempting to remedy the evil by 
lowering the tariff, deliberately raised it, being par- 
ticularly careful to see that the percentage on trust- 
controlled goods was made sufficiently high to render 
foreign competition imi>ossible. This led the PhiU- 
delphia Ledger, a Republican newspaper, to remart ; 



NEW ISSUES 91 

"If Congress had any genuine regard for the inter- 
ests of the people, or if it were sincere of purpose re- 
specting their common welfare, or in regard to the 
proper protection of labor, it would promptly transfer 
to the free list every product controlled by a con- 
scienceless and predatory trust which reduces produc- 
tion, cuts off working people from work and wages, 
and increases prices to the tens of millions of con- 
sumers." The correctness of this view was testified 
to, before the United States Industrial Commission, 
in June, 1899, by no less a personage than Henry O. 
Havemeyer, president of the sugar trust, who said: 

"The existing [tariff] bill and the preceding one 
have been the occasion of the formation of all the 
large trusts with very few exceptions, inasmuch as 
they provide for an inordinate protection to all the 
interests of the country — sugar refining excepted. All 
this agitation against trusts is against merely the 
business machinery employed to take from the public 
w^hat the government in its tariff law^s says it is 
proper and suitable they should have. It is the gov- 
ernment, through its tariff laws, which plunders the 
people, and the trusts, etc., are merely the machinery 
for doing it." 

The showing regarding trusts made in the "Com- 
mercial Year Book" for 1899 was startling. Its 
salient features may be thus tabulated: 

1899 1898 

Number of trusts 353 200 

Stock 15,118,494,181 $3,283,521,452 

Bonded debt 714,388,661 378,720,091 

Stock and bonds 5,832,882,842 3,662,241,543 



92 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

This shows an increase for the year of 76 per cent, 
in the number of institutions and of 60 per cent, in 
stock and bonded debt. But it shows more than this. 
According to the census of 1890 the entire capital em- 
ployed in manufacturing and mechanical industries 
was 16,525^000,000. A comparison of this figure with 
the stock and bonds of trusts for 1899 shows that the 
capitalization of these gigantic combines was equal to 
90 per cent of the entire manufacturing investments 
of 1890. 

It was such significant figures as these that woke 
the country to a realization of the imminence and 
great importance of the trust problem. It was felt 
that the most stupendous industrial revolution in the 
history of the world was on, because it was realized 
how closely our industrial system had approached to 
complete absorption under monopolistic control. In- 
dustry at large was becoming organized into a system 
of feudalized corporations. Each was stifling com- 
petition, discouraging enterprise, and padlocking the 
gates of opportunity. Together they were in absolute 
mastery of the industrial field. 

The menacing danger of the situation was early 
realized, and the "anti-trust" movement progressed 
side by side with the opposition to imperialism. The 
fight was to be one of individualism against a gigantic 
and arrogant plutocracy, the forces of individualism 
contending for the doctrines of liberty and equal op- 
portunity as against the reactionary tendencies of 
which trusts and imperialism were the supremest 




DAVID B. HILL 



NEW ISSUES 98 

manifestations. In this Titanic struggle it was but 
fitting that the Jeffersonian hosts should be mar- 
shaled under the leadership of the brave, aggressive, 
eloquent, and inspired evangel of the doctrines of 
the Fathers — William J. Bryan. 



RENOMINATION 

When the result of the great presidential contest of 
1896 was made known, Mr. Bryan's political enemies, 
both in and out of the Democratic party, loudly pro- 
claimed that "Bryanism'' — or ^'Bryanarchy,'' as a 
green-eyed relict of Mr. Cleveland's second cabinet 
terms it — was dead and buried. Some said it was 
^^too dead to bury." And Bryan himself, they glee- 
fully asserted, had died with the death of ideas to 
which he was wedded. Doubtless many of them be- 
lieved this. The fierce and determined onslaught of 
the silver men in that memorable campaign had so 
wrought upon the fears of the class of Americans of 
whom Marcus A. Hanna and Pierpont Morgan are 
representative, that, in their nervous hysteria after 
their narrow escape, they were in a frame of mind 

where but little evidence was required to induce great 
faith. And, moreover, the decisive defeat which 

Bryan had suffered, considered in its probable effect 
on his disorganized following, was such as naturally 
gave birth to the hope that to the outstretched palms 
of the repudiated and disowned leaders of the party, 
such as Mr. Cleveland, might soon be restored in con- 
trition the insignia of power and authority. 

But even those who most sincerely believed and 
uproariously heralded the death of Bryauism and of 
Bryan continued their flagellations of both as earn- 



EENOMINATION 95 

estiy as of yore. To them the good old Latin rule 
^^De mortuis nihil nisi honum'^ was obselete and cob- 
webby. 

And so, for almost three years succeeding Mr. Mc- 
Kinley's election, the funeral notices of Democracy's 
leader were daily published and his requiems daily 
sung. But, through all this time, the faith of the 
allied forces of reform that their leader was still of 
the living abode with them, and, firm in the belief, 
they were neither faltered nor dismayed, and never a 
man broke ranks. 

And it was not long before faith that was of the 
spirit gave way to that certainty which comes of 
knowledge that is of the brain and senses. The first 
evidence was the remarkable sale and popularity of 
^'The First Battle." Another was the increasing de- 
mand for Mr. Bryan's services as lecturer and public 
speaker, and the rapturous enthusiasm with which he 
was received, excelling, if possible that which greeted 
the Presidential candidate. Then, when he fearlessly 
took a stand against imperialism, which seemed to be 
sweeping the country like a great forest fire, and at 
once, in response to his appeal, the great Democratic 
party lined up against that policy, it became clearly 
evident that the powers of the great popular leader 
had not waned; neither had his influence over the 
minds and hearts of the people been lost. Finally, 
just as he was the first great public man of the United 
States to raise his voice in protest against the aban- 
donment of the Republic, so he was the first to propose 
a definite and coherent remedy for the overshadowing 



96 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

evil of the trusts. This again demonstrated his natu- 
ral fitness for leadership. Mr. Brjan first outlined 
his views at the Anti-Trust Conference held in Chi- 
cago in 1899. Because of its importance, as well as 
because it was the first tangible remedy proposed, it 
is here reproduced: 

"I believe we ought to have remedies in both state 
and nation, and that they should be concurrent reme- 
dies. In the first place, every state has, or should 
have, the right to create any private corporation 
which, in the judgment of the people of the state, is 
conducive to the welfare of the people of that state. 
I believe we can safely entrust to the people of 
a state the settlement of a question which concerns 
them. If they create a corporation, and it becomes 
destructive of their best interests, they can destroy 
that corporation, and we can safely trust them both 
to create and annihilate, if conditions make annihila- 
tion necessary. In the second place, the state has, or 
should have, the right to prohibit any foreign corpora- 
tion from doing business in the state, and it has, or 
should have, the right to impose such restrictions and 
limitations as the people of the state may think neces- 
sary upon foreign corporations doing business in the 
state. In other words, the people of the state not only 
should have a right to create the corporations they 
want, but they should be permitted to protect them- 
selves against any outside corporation. 

"But I do not think this is sufficient. I believe, in 
addition to a state remedy, there must be a Federal 
remedy, and I believe Congress has, or should have. 



EENOMINATION 97 

the power to place restrictions and limitations, even 
to the point of prohibition, upon any corporation or- 
ganized in any state that wants to do business outside 
of the state. I say that Congress has, or should have, 
power to place upon the corporation such limitations 
and restrictions, even to the point of prohibition, as 
may to Congress seem necessary for the protection of 
the public. 

"Now, I believe that these concurrent remedies will 
prove effective. To repeat, the people of every state 
shall first decide whether they want to create a corpor- 
ation. They shall also decide whether they want any 
outside corporation to do business in the state; and, 
if so, upon what conditions; and then Congress shall 
exercise the right to place upon every corporation 
doing business outside of the state in which it is or- 
ganized such limitations and restrictions as may be 
necessary for the protection of the public." 

The legislation to be enacted by Congress Mr. 
Bryan roughly outlined as follows : 

"Suppose that Congress should say that whenever 
a corporation wants to do business outside of the 
state, it must apply to and receive from some body, 
created by Congress for the purpose, a license to do 
business. Suppose the law should provide three con- 
ditions upon which the license could be issued : 

"1. That the evidence should show that there was 
no water in the stock. 

"2. That the evidence should show that the corpor- 
ation has not attempted in the past and is not now 



98 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

attempting, to monopolize any branch of industry or 
any article of merchandise; and 

"3. Providino' for that publicity which everybody 
has spoken of and about which everybody agrees." 

This plan of Mr. Bryan's for the suppression of 
monopolistic trusts is given here, not especially be- 
cause of the intrinsic merit it may possess, but as il- 
lustrating one of the important i^hases of his char- 
acter. 

When the tariff question was under discussion, Mr. 
Bryan was an outspoken advocate of a tariff for rev- 
enue only. When the silver question arose Mr. Bryan 
wrote and stood squarely upon the first platform that 
declared for the ^'free and unlimited coinage of both 
gold and silver at the present legal ratio of IG to 1, 
without waiting for the aid or consent of any other 
nation on earth." When the dark cloud of imperi- 
alism rose on the horizon his was the first voice to 
point out the danger, and he took an unequivocal posi- 
tion in favor of granting independence to the Fili- 
pinos. And now, at the Trust Conference, while 
many joined with him in denunciation of the evil, he 
alone proposed and ably defended a definite and ex- 
plicit remedy. So it has been with every other ques- 
tion with which Mr. Brvan has had to deal, in his 
career as a public man ; he has never failed to state his 
exact position and to take the American people fully 
and freely into his confidence. And his frankness and 
honesty have been appreciated. Of the thousand 
delegates chosen during the first six months of the 
year 1900 to attend the great Democratic National 



EENOMINATION 99 

convention at Kansas City, those from every state but 
two were instructed for Bryan for President. When 
it is remembered that this was done in spite of the 
earnest desire of a number of well-lvuown Democrats 
who wished it otherwise, but absolutely dared not 
make a fight, the full significance of this great popular 
tribute to the defeated candidate of four years before 
may be understood. It was this unanimity as regard- 
ed the candidate, together with the unanimity regard- 
ing the issue, the feeling of enthusiasm aroused by the 
one, and of patriotic fervor excited by the other, that 
made the Kansas City convention one destined to be 
memorable in American history. And while the name 
on the lips of every Democrat was the same name as 
was pronounced at Chicago four years before, the 
issue which aroused them by the compelling force of 
events was entirely different. Then the question was : 
What kind of money shall this nation have, and who 
shall issue it and control its volume? Now the ques- 
tion was : What form of government shall this nation 
have ; shall it remain a Republic, as contemplated by 
the fathers, — the world's beacon light of liberty, — or 
shall it turn its face to the past, extinguish its light, 
and on the dark sea of empire, littered with the flot- 
sam and jetsam of nations that once were great and 
free, set forth toward the orient? The issue was 
worthy of the man, and the man, with a reunited and 
virile Democracy behind him, was perpared to meet it. 
No man who was so fortunate as to be present at 
the Kansas City convention can live long enough 
to forget it. It was epoch-marking not only for its 

LafC. 



100 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

outward appearance, but for its inward signilicence. 
To the onlooker, stirred by its emotional enthusiasm, 
by the wildness and frenzy of its patriotic manifesta- 
tions, these were its memorable and significant fea- 
tures. But to him who looked beneath the surface, 
who knew and saw the strange combat being waged 
between one man and many hundreds of men, — a 
combat one of the strangest in nature and most re- 
markable in its outcome ever waged in a parliamen- 
tary body, — it was this that held him entranced to 
the end, and sent him home marveling at that one 
man's strength and greatness. It came about in this 
wise: Of the hundreds of thousands of Gold Demo- 
crats who left the Democratic party in 1896 because 
of the silver question, ninety per cent or more were 
anxious to come back and aid in Mr. Bryan's nomina- 
tion and election, now that they believed they saw 
the Republic itself in danger at the hand of President 
McKinley and his advisers. They saw, as did the Sil- 
ver Democrats, as did Mr. Bryan himself, that im- 
perialism was to be the dominating, all-important 
issue of the campaign. In the shadow of the great 
danger of the conversion of the Republic into an em- 
pire they were willing to subordinate all minor differ- 
ences and join to defeat the President they had them- 
selves helped to elect four years before. It is true that 
to these men "free silver" was still a bugaboo. At the 
same time they were convinced that, because of the 
complexion of the Senate, with its heavy Republican 
majority, even should Mr. Bryan and a Democratic 
House of Representatives be elected on a free silver 



RENOMINATION 101 

platform, it would be impossible for them, in four 
years, to enact any legislation along that line. But 
nevertheless, after the manner of many a returning 
prodigal, they demanded a concession. It was a very 
modest and moderate concession they wanted. They 
asked the party only to reaffirm instead of reiterating 
the free silver plank of the Chicago platform. 

It can hardly be denied that to reaffirm is, in effect, 
to reiterate. The difference is only in seeming, — and, 
possibly, that it gives opportunity for ^'interpreta- 
tion" and ^'construction.'^ At all events, the Gold 
Democrats had early gone to work to secure this con- 
cession. They had been successful in enlisting in their 
behalf scores and hundreds of sincere friends of bi- 
metallism in the Democratic party. And when the 
delegates were gathered at Kansas City it became 
evident that a large majority of them were favorable 
to the policy of a general reaffirmation of the Chicago 
platform without a specific repetition of the demand 
for free silver at the ratio of sixteen to one. Not only 
were the most of the delegates inclined to this course, 
but it was advocated, before the convention met, by a 
large majority of the influential party leaders. It 
was, on the part of the leaders, as of most of the dele- 
gates, a sincere and honest advocacy, by men whose 
fealty to the doctrine of bimetallism was undoubted. 
It was their intent, not to abandon the demand for 
free silver, — far from it, — for the platform would re- 
affirm the demand made in 1896,— but to subordinate 
it in such a way as would do least damage in the fight 
for the preservation of the Republic. Such was their 
honest position. 



102 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

But liere the trouble arose. The Gold Democrats, 
by their very insistence, had made "free silver" the 
only issue, so far as the convention was concerned. 
There was no difference among Democrats as to any 
other plank of the platform. This very fact, and the 
fact that in every newspaper in the country the one 
question of discussion and of speculation concern- 
ing the convention was whether it would "reaffirm" 
or "reiterate" had brought the old issue so promi- 
nently to the fore-ground that not to reiterate would 
mean practically to abandon the position, while under 
fire. Had the issue never been raised, had the fight 
thereon never been precipitated, it is conceivable, even 
probable, that there had come from no source any 
objection to the policy of reaffirming the Chicago plat- 
form so far as the old issues were concerned, and mak- 
ing specific declarations on the new ones. But the 
issue had been raised, and the objection came, — came 
from William J. Bryan, at his home in Lincoln. 

On July 1, R. L. Metcalfe, a delegate at large from 
Nebraska, after a long consultation with Mr. Bryan 
gave out an authorized interview in which he declared 
that there must be a specific declaration on the money 
question. This was taken as a statement of Mr. 
Bryan's position, and David B. Hill, the leader of the 
Gold Democrats, at once hastened from Kansas City 
to Lincoln on a futile mission. He wished to induce 
Mr. Bryan to recede from his position. It became at 
once evident that there was to be a contest over the 
money plank of the platform. 

On July 3, the day before the convention met, A. S. 



RENOMINATION 103 

Tibbets of Lincoln, another delegate-at-large from 
Nebraska, threw this bomb-shell: ''Bryan will not 
run on any platform which does not contain a specific 
declaration in favor of free coinage at the ratio of 
sixteen to one. If this convention does not put that 
declaration in the platform it will have to nominate 
another candidate for president." 

This authorized statement was a bugle call to Demo- 
crats, reminding them that parties are founded on the 
bed-rock of principle, and that platforms are made 
unequivocally to express convictions. Many of the 
leaders of the party, assembled at Kansas City, took 
their stand by Bryan's side, and the fight for sturdy, 
honest, and manly candor waged fiercely to the end. 

Ex-Governor Hill, who had returned from Lincoln, 
alone among the leaders who had fought for a specific 
silver plank, boldly and openly continued his fight. 
He is a hard and stubborn fighter, and he centered his 
efforts on the organization of the committee on resolu- 
tions. He sent for heads of delegations known to be 
favorable to his plan, and urged upon them the neces- 
sity of selecting "careful, conservative, long-headed 
men,'' as members of that important committee. He 
argued vehemently for the necessity of such action as 
would "reorganize the jjarty" and make victory as- 
sured. "Good God, gentlemen," the famous New 
Yorker exclaimed to one delegation with which he was 
closeted, "we must not lose this election. It means 
fifty years of republican rule. And if we are wise," 
he said, wagging his head solemnly, "we will not lose 
it. The people want to be with us. Shall we be so 



104 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

geuerous'' — with an oratorical flourish and French- 
ified shrug of his expressive shoulders — "as to refuse 
to allow them to fight our battles?'' 

Here a Kansan spoke up. "I am not a delegate, 
senator/' he said, "but I want a conservative plat- 
form. If we don't get it I'll go home and quit, and 
I've voted the Democratic ticket for fifty years." 

"Wait, wait, my friend," came the quick response; 
"don't, don't, I pray you, say that. Whether the plat- 
form pleases us or not, we must fight, fight to win, 
fight to the death." The ejea of the shrewd and wily 
politician flashed. In quick, nervous staccato he con- 
tinued : "Mark my words, mark my words. If McKin- 
ley and a Republican Congress are elected inside the 
year a force bill will be fastened ui)on us. Why? 
Kentucky; that will be the excuse. And the next 
move — do you know what it will be? On the pretext 
that the negro vote is not cast nor counted, the repre- 
sentation of the southern states in Congress will be 
reduced. Their vote in the electoral college will be 
diminished, and they'll have the Democratic party by 
the throat, bound hand and foot. We must not permit 
it. We must not." 

The second day before the convention met, the 
writer of this chapter, in a dispatch to the Omaha 
World-Hei^aldj said : 

"There are many Democrats in Kansas City to- 
night who profess to deplore what they term William 
J. Bryan's lack of skill as a "practical politician," 
who murmur their complaints that the leader of their 
party does not understand the gentle art of construct 



RENOMINATTON" 105 

ing a platform that will "catch 'em acomin' and catch 
'em a gwine," who complain that Mr. Biyan does not 
understand that the end and aim of a political party 
is to get into power — to hold offices and control the 
patronage of the administration. These men, crafty, 
cunning diplomats, though not always successful 
withal, are, it may frankly be admitted, grieved and 
disappointed at Mr. Bryan's insistence that the Dem- 
ocratic platform should clearly and explicitly set 
forth the conviction and the purpose of Democracy's 
heart and brain. 

"But in all Kansas City, among all the sweltering 
and noisy crow^ds that throng the lobbies and march 
up and down the streets, there can not be found a 
single man — Democrat, Populist, or Republican — but 
will confess his admiration of Mr. Bryan's honesty 
and courage. 

"To the leaders and manipulators of parties, to the 
men taught and accustomed to play to the pit, Mr. 
Brvan is a source of ever-increasing wonder and sur- 
prise. It is hard for the politician to understand the 
statesman. 

"It it not to be doubted that Mr. Bryan's wishes 
are to prevail in the great convention of American 
patriotism which is to convene to-morrow on the anni- 
versary of the Republic's birth, to proclaim .^new the 
unchanged and never-changing truths to perpetuate 
which the blood of heroes and of martyrs was shed on 
a hundred battlefields. 

"The platform will be an honest platform, it will 
be an easily understood platform, it will conceal noth= 



106 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

ing, and it will evade nothing. It will there declare, 
in explicit terms, for independent bimetallism by this 
country alone, at the present legal ratio of sixteen to 
one. This prediction may be safely hazarded. 

"All day long the leaven has been working, all day 
long the gospel of candor and righteousness has been 
preached, and to-night there is not a delegate but 
knows that Mr. Bryan demands that the Democratic 
party deal in unequivocal good faith with the people 
of this country.'^ 

In truth the bold and manly position taken by Mr. 
Bryan had won him the admiration and respect of 
the whole country. It demonstrated anew those noble 
qualities which he possesses in such an unusual de- 
gree. The strength of his position was well outlined 
in an interview given to the New York Herald by Mr. 
Metcalfe, who led the fight for a specific declaration. 
Mr. Metcalfe said : 

"When the American people know Mr. Bryan 
better, they will learn that he is not a politician in tlie 
jjopular acceptation of that term, but that he is hon- 
estly devoted to his views of fundamental principles, 
and that, while not an obstinate man, on this question 
of principle he is as firm as a rock. Men who know 
him best know him to be a man of iron. He stands 
to-day determined that the platform on which he is to 
be a candidate shall contain a plank explicitly pledg- 
ing independent bimetallism at the ratio of sixteen to 
one. Those men of the East who do not knoAV the man, 
and who may be inclined to regard his position on 
this question as an obstinate one, should know that 



RENOMINATION 107 

the same firmness of purpose, the same indifference 
to appeal even by men known to be friendly to him 
that characterizes his adherence to the principle in 
which some of the men of the East believe him to be 
wrong, will sustain him in the .White House on the 
many great questions on which they believe him to 
be right. 

"The situation is an unusual one as political situa- 
tions have gone in this country, but the man who is to 
be the nominee of this convention is an exceptional 
man. As the prospective nominee of this convention 
he will not surrender his convictions. As the nominee 
of the Democratic party in the coming campaign he 
will not be a dodger. In the White House he will not 
be a wabbler. When he shall be elected, men who may 
be saddened by the thought that they have a President 
who believes in bimetallism at the ratio of sixteen to 
one may find consolation in the demonstration of the 
fact that they also have an American president who 
adheres to the policies and traditions of a republic 
in preference to the habits of an empire; who draws 
his inspiration from the great mass of the people, 
rather than from a coterie of trust agents ; whose pur- 
pose it is to discharge his duties so that the result 
shall be the greatest good to the greatest number, 
rather than to surrender to a handful of men the 
privilege of administering the government to the end 
that the many shall bear all the burdens and the few 
shall enjoy all the benefits." 

The fight in the resolutions committee was a hard 
and long one. So closely was the committee divided 



108 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

that it was evident that neither side had more than 
two or three majority. It seemed almost inevitable 
that a minority and majority report, differing only 
as to the wording in which the party's allegiance to 
silver should be expressed, would go before the con- 
vention. And in this event hard feeling would in all 
probability be engendered, harsh words be spoken, 
and factionalism and disunion might result. In this 
crisis, one of the members of the resolutions commit- 
tee was seized with an inspiration. In a half hour the 
whole difficulty was solved. The committee unani" 
mously agreed to a specific demand for free silver 
coupled with the declaration that imperialism was 
the paramount issue of the campaign. 

On July 5 the platform was read and adopted by 
the convention, and Bryan nominated for president 
of the United States. 

Again the writer incori)orates a portion of a dis- 
patch sent by him to the World-Herald descriptive of 
this memorable session of the convention : 

"Never in the history of popular government has 
there been held a national convention of a great po- 
litical party that can be likened to that which at Kan- 
sas City to-day promulgated its declaration of 
principles and nominated its candidate for the chief 
magistracy of the great commonwealth of sovereign 
American states. 

"To-day's session witnessed scenes of turbulent en- 
thusiasm, of intense patriotic ardor such as have never 
before been witnessed and such as promise a victory 
at once glorious and complete for William J. Bryan 




ADLAI STEVENSON 



RENOMINATION 100 

at the polls next November. It has been a day 
marked by loftiest patriotism and noblest piiri)oses, 
a day that for centuries to come will stand clear and 
distinct as marking an ejjoch in the cause of human 
liberty. 

"To-day was fired the first gun of that great war 
which is to be w^aged during the next four montbs for 
the preservation of the Republic and the perpetuation 
of American institutions. And to-day, on a Demo- 
cratic platform, addressing a Democratic convention, 
Webster Davis, Republican orator, statesman, and 
publicist, denounced in words of burning eloquence 
licpublican abandonment of republican principles, 
and pledged his loyal and unswerving support to 
William J. Bryan. And on that same platform David 
B. Hill, Gold Democrat, stood before wildly cheering 
thousands, and announced a reunited Democracy. 

" 'Save the Republic,' is to be the battle cry, the 
Declaration of Independence the party creed, 'Tlie 
Battle Hymn of the Republic' the battle hymn, and 
the American flag the party emblem. And the leader, 
honest, unswerving, and undaunted, is to be the same 
gallant chieftain w^ho breathed anew the breath of life 
into Democracy four years ago and marched it to 
glorious battle. Such, while the fire of patriotism 
burned fiercely in its heart, was the unanimous de- 
cision reached to-day by the Democratic National 
convention. 

"As has been daily predicted in these dispatches, 
the Democratic party took no backward step on the 
question of finance. 



110 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

^^There is no attempt at quibbling, at subterfuge, or 
equivocation. Honest^^ and candor of the highest 
order live in this j^lank of the platform as they have 
their being in every other plank. There is not a line, 
a word, or a syllable capable of more than the one 
meaning; there are no omissions, no half statements, 
no dodgings of any question. The jjlatform is in every 
sense worthy of the man — candid, bold, honest, and 
sincere even as he is candid, bold, honest, and sincere. 
Most wondrously were the schemes and machinations 
of the enemies of the Democratic party confounded. 
For on the single question on which the delegates were 
divided, as to whether there should be a specific de- 
mand for the free coinage of silver at the ratio of six- 
teen to one by this nation alone, the committee on 
resolutions brought in a unanimous report and the 
demand was boldly and specifically made. And the 
platform in which that demand was incorporated was 
adopted by the convention, not only with absolute 
unanimity, but amid the wildest, the most general, 
and most prolonged enthusiasm. 

"In this unanimity spoke the love of every delegate 
for the Republic. It came because of a realizing sense 
that popular government and free institutions are in 
danger. And with that danger threatening, not a man 
in the convention but felt that all other differences 
must be buried while the party that founded and 
builded the Republic rallies to guard the sacred edifice 
from the vandal hands that are outstretched for its 
destruction. And thus it was that the great Dem.o- 
cratic party reunited, north, south, east, and west 



RENOMINATION 111 

clasping hands, love of country in every man's heart 
and ^save the Republic' on each man's lip, gave its 
platform and its candidate to the country." 

So Mr. Bryan won his greatest fight. It was a 
fight not only for principle and honesty, but for abso" 
lute candor and sincerity in dealing with any ques- 
tion before the American people. And, having won 
it, he was again the candidate for President of three 
political parties. For at Kansas City, at a convention 
held at the same time as the Democratic, the Silver 
Republican party, under the leadership of that pure 
and disinterested patriot, Charles A. Towne, had made 
Brj^an and Stevenson, the Democratic nominees, its 
own nominees. And the Peoples' party, at Sioux 
Falls, South Dakota, early in May had, in a spirit of 
noble self-sacrifice, gone outside its own party in its 
search for candidates, naming Mr. Bryan for Presi- 
dent and Mr. ToAvne for Vice-President. Mr. Towne, 
believing that by so doing he could better further Mr. 
Brvan's election, later withdrew from the ticket. 

The Republican party met at Philadelphia in June, 
and renominated President McKinley, choosing as its 
Vice-Presidential candidate Governor Theodore 
Roosevelt of New York. The platform declared for 
the permanent retention of the Philippine Islands as 
property of the United States. 

President McKinley, in his speech of acceptance, 
thus outlined his Philippine policy : 

"There must be no scuttle policy. We will fulfil 
in the Philippines the obligations imposed by the tri- 
umph of our arms, by the treaty of peace, and by inter- 



112 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

national law, by the nation's sense of honor, and, more 
than all, by the rights, interests, and conditions of 
the Filipinos themselves. . . . The Philippines 
are ours, and American authority must be supreme 
throughout the archipelago." 

Those who find this declaration vague and unsatis- 
factory may well turn to Mr. Bryan's great speech of 
acceptance delivered at Indianapolis on August 8, in 
which he makes this distinct pledge : 

"If elected, I shall convene Congress in extraordi- 
nary session as soon as I am inaugurated and recom- 
mend an immediate declaration of the nation's pur- 
pose, first, to establish a stable form of government in 
the Philippine Islands, just as we are now establishing 
a stable form of government in Cuba ; second, to give 
independence to the Filipinos, just as we have prom- 
ised to give independence to the Cubans; third, to 
protect the Filipinos from outside interference while 
they work out their destiny, just as we have protected 
the republics of Central and South America and are, 
by the Monroe Doctrine, pledged to protect Cuba. A 
European protectorate often results in the exploita- 
tion of the ward by the guardian. An American pro- 
tectorate gives to the nation protected the advantage 
of our strength without making it the victim of our 
greed. For three-quarters of a century the Monroe 
Doctrine has been a shield to neighboring republics, 
and yet it has imposed no pecuniary burden upon us." 

So is the issue drawn in the important campaign 
in which, for a second time, William J. Bryan and 
William McKinley are the opposing candidates for 



RENOMINATION 113 

the highest elective office in the world. For weal or 
for woe, who can doubt that the outcome will be of 
serious and far-reaching import to the people of the 
United States and to their children and children's 
children who shall live after them? 



THE INDIANAPOLIS SPEECH 

Mr. Bryan was notified of his second nomination 
for the Presidency by the Democratic party at Indian- 
apolis, Ind., on Augnst 8, 1900. The ceremonies took 
place in the presence of an immense multitude of 
people, the number being conservatively estimated at 
fifty thousand, among whom were included many of 
the most distinguished members of the party. In 
formally accepting the nomination Mr. Bryan de- 
livered a speech which will not only rank as incom- 
parably the best of his numerous public utterances, 
but which is destined to immortality in the brief list 
of the world's great orations. 

For purity and simplicity of style, and beauty and 
strength of structure, as well as for its masterful logic 
and sublimity of sentiment, this speech has never 
been excelled. While it has not the stately sweep of 
Demosthenes' Philippics, the incisiveness of Cicero's 
invectives, or the grandeur of Burke's sonorous 
periods, in its every sentence lives such honesty, sin- 
cerity, ardent patriotism, and lofty purpose that it 
thrills the hearts and stirs the consciences of men as 
no other speech, save only Abraham Lincoln's Gettys- 
burg Address, has ever done before. 

This speech, not only because of its wondrous effect 
on the American people and its direct bearing on the 
great issue with which Mr. Bryan's life has become 



THE INDIANAPOLIS SPEECH 115 

wedded, but as mucli because of the glowing light it 
sheds upon the character of the man, his ideals, and 
his motives, is here reproduced in full : 

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Notification 
Committee — I shall, at an early day, and in a more 
formal manner accept the nomination which jou 
tender, and I shall at that time discuss the various 
questions covered by the Democratic platform. It 
may not be out of place, however, to submit a few 
observations at this time upon the general character 
of the contest before us and upon the question which 
is declared to be of paramount importance in this 
campaign. 

When I say that the contest of 1900 is a contest be- 
tween democracy on the one hand and plutocracy on 
the other, I do not mean to say that all our opponents 
have deliberately chosen to give to organized wealth 
a predominating influence in the affairs of the gov- 
ernment, but I do assert that, on the important issues 
of the day, the Republican party is dominated by 
those influences which constantly tend to substitute 
the w^orship of mammon for the protection of the 
rights of man. 

In 1859 Lincoln said that the Republican party be- 
lieved in the man and the dollar, but that in case of 
conflict it believed in the man before the dollar. This 
is the proper relation which should exist between the 
two. Man, the handiwork of God, comes first ; money, 
the handiwork of man, is of inferior importance. Man 
is the master, money the servant, but upon all im- 



116 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

portant questions to-day Republican legislation tends 
to make money the master and man the servant. 

The maxim of Jefferson, "Equal rights to all and 
special privileges to none/' and the doctrine of Lin- 
coln that this should be a governmen^t "of the people, 
by the people, and for the people," are being disre- 
garded and the instrumentalities of government are 
being used to advance the interests of those who are 
in a position to secure favors from the government. 

The Democratic party is not making war upon the 
honest acquisition of wealth; it has no desire to dis- 
courage industry, economy, and thrift. On the con- 
trary, it gives to every citizen the greatest possible 
stimulus to honest toil when it promises him protec- 
tion in the enjoyment of the proceeds of his labor. 
Property rights are most secure when human rights 
are most respected. Democracy strives for a civiliza- 
tion in which every member of society will share ac- 
cording to his merits. 

No one has a right to expect from society more than 
a fair compensation for the service which he renders 
to society. If he secures more it is at the expense of 
someone else. It is no injustice to him to prevent 
his doing injustice to another. To him who would, 
either through class legislation or in the absence of 
necessary legislation, trespass upon the rights of an- 
other the Democratic party says, "Thou shalt not." 

Against us are arrayed a comparatively small but 
politically and financially powerful number who 
really profit by Republican policies; but with them 
are associated a large number who, because of their 



THE INDIANAPOLIS SPEECH 117 

attachment to their party name, are giving their sup- 
port to doctrines antagonistic to the former teachings 
of their own party. Republicans who used to advo- 
cate bimetallism now try to convince themselves that 
the gold standard is good; Republicans who were 
formerly attached to the greenback are now seeking 
an excuse for giving national banks control of the 
nation's paper money ; Republicans who used to boast 
that the Republican party was paying off the national 
debt are now looking for reasons to support a per- 
petual and increasing debt ; Republicans who formerly 
abhorred a trust now beguile themselves with the de- 
lusion that there are good trusts and bad trusts, while, 
in their minds, the line between the two is becoming 
more and more obscure; Re]3ublicans who, in times 
past, congratulated the country upon the small ex- 
pense of our standing army are now making light of 
the objections which are urged against a large in- 
crease in the permanent military establishment; Re- 
publicans who gloried in our independence when the 
nation was less powerful now look with favor upon a 
foreign alliance; Republicans who three years ago 
condemned ''forcible annexation'' as immoral and even 
criminal are now sure that it is both immoral and 
criminal to oppose forcible annexation. That parti- 
sanship has already blinded many to present dangers 
is certain; how large a portion of the Republican 
party can be drawn over to the new policies remains 
to be seen. 

For a time Republican leaders were inclined to 
deny to opponents the right to criticise the Philippine 



118 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

policy of the admiuistration, but upon investigation 
they found that both Lincoln and Clay asserted and 
exercised the right to criticise a president during the 
progress of the Mexican war. 

Instead of meeting the issue boldly and submitting 
a clear and positive plan for dealing with the Philip- 
pine question, the Refjublican convention adopted a 
platform, the larger part of which was devoted to 
boasting and self-congratulation. 

In attempting to press economic questions upon the 
country to the exclusion of those which involve the 
very structure of our government, the Republicaii 
leaders give new evidence of their abandonment of the 
earlier ideals of the party and of their complete sub- 
serviency to pecuniary considerations. 

But they shall not be permitted to evade the stu- 
pendous and far-reaching issue which they have de- 
liberately brought into the arena of politics. When 
the president, supported by a practically unanimous 
vote of the House and Senate, entered upon a war with 
Spain for the purpose of aiding the struggling patriots 
of Cuba, the country, without regard to party, ap- 
plauded. Although the Democrats recognized that 
the administration would necessarily gain a political 
advantage from the conduct of a war which in the 
very nature of the case must soon end in a complete 
victory, they vied with the Republicans in the sup- 
port which they gave to the President. When the 
war was over and the Republican leaders began to 
suggest the propriety of a colonial policy, opposition 
at once manifested itself. When the President final! v 



THE INDIANAPOLIS SPEECH 119 

laid before the Senate a treaty which recognized the 
independence of Cuba, but provided for the cession of 
the Philippine islands to the United States, the men- 
ace of imperialism became so apparent that many pre- 
ferred to reject the treaty and risk the ills that might 
follow ratlier than take the chance of correcting the 
errors of the treaty by the independent action of this 
country. 

I was among the number of those who believed it 
better to ratify the treaty and end the war, release the 
volunteers, remove the excuse for war expenditures, 
and then give to the Filipinos the independence which 
might be forced from Spain by a new^ treaty. 

In view of the criticism which my action aroused in 
some quarters, I take this occasion to restate the 
reasons given at that time. I thought it safer to trust 
the American people to give independence to the 
Filipinos than to trust the accomplishment of that 
purpose to diplomacy with an unfriendly nation. Lin- 
coln embodied an argument in the question when he 
asked, "Can aliens make treaties easier than friends 
can make laws?'' I believe that we are now in a better 
position to wage a successful contest against imperial- 
ism than we would have been had the treaty been re- 
jected. With the treaty ratified, a clean-cut issue is 
presented between a government by consent and a 
government by force, and imperialists must bear the 
responsibility for all that hapyjens until the question 
is settled. If the treaty had been rejected, the oppon- 
ents of imperialism would have been held responsible 
for nny international complications which might have 



120 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

arisen before the ratification of another treaty. But, 
whatever differences of opinion may have existed as to 
the best method of opposing a colonial policy, there 
never was any difference as to the importance of the 
course to be pursued. 

The title of Spain being extinguished, we were at 
liberty to deal with the Filipinos according to Ameri- 
can principles. The Bacon resolution, introduced a 
month before hostilities broke out at Manila, prom- 
ised independence to the Filipinos on the same terms 
that it was promised to the Cubans. I supported this 
resolution and believe that its adoption prior to the 
breaking out of hostilities would have prevented 
bloodshed, and that its adoption at any subsequent 
time would have ended hostilities. 

If the treaty had been rejected considerable time 
would have necessarily elapsed before a new treaty 
couiu have been agreed upon and ratified, and during 
that time the question would have been agitating the 
public mind. If the Bacon resolution had been 
adopted by the Senate and carried out by the Presi- 
dent, either at the time of the ratification of the treaty 
or at any time afterwards, it would have taken the 
question of imperialism out of politics and left the 
American people free to deal with their domestic 
problems. But the resolution was defeated by the 
vote of the Republican Vice-President, and from that 
time to this a Republican Congress has refused to take 
any action whatever in the matter. 

When hostilities broke out at Manila Republican 
speakers and Republican editors at once sought to 



THE INDIANAPOLIS SPEECH 121 

lay the blame upon those who had delayed the ratifi- 
cation of the treaty, and, during the progress of the 
war, the same Republicans have accused the oppon- 
ents of imperialism of giving encouragement to the 
Filipinos. This is a cowardly evasion of 
responsibility. 

If it is right for the United States to hold the Philip- 
pine islands permanently and imitate European em' 
pires in the government of colonies, the Republican 
party ought to state its position and defend it, but it 
must expect the subject races to protest against such 
a policy and to resist to the extent of their ability. 
The Filipinos do not need any encouragement from 
Americans now living. Our whole history has been 
an encouragement, not only to the Filipinos, but to all 
who are denied a voice in their own government. If 
the Republicans are prepared to censure all who have 
used language calculated to make the Filipinos hate 
foreign domination let them condemn the speech of 
Patrick Henry. When he uttered that passionate 
appeal, "Give me liberty or give me death,'' he ex- 
pressed a sentiment which still echoes in the hearts 
of men. Let them censure Jefferson ; of all the states- 
men of history none have used words so offensive to 
those who would hold their fellows in political bond- 
age. Let them censure Washington, who declared 
that the colonists must choose between liberty and 
slavery. Or, if the statute of limitations has run 
against the sins of Henry and Jefferson and Washing- 
ton, let them censure Lincoln, whose Gettysburg 
speech will be quoted in defense of popular govern- 



122 WILLIAM JENNINGS CRY AN 

meiit when llie jjresent advocates of force aud con- 
quest are forgotten. 

Some one has said that a truth once spoken can 
never be recalled. It goes on and on, and no one can 
set a limit to its ever-widening influence. But if it 
were possible to obliterate every word w^ritten or 
spoken in defense of the principles set forth in the 
Declaration of Independence, a war of conquest would 
still leave its legacy of perpetual hatred, for it was 
God Himself who placed in every human heart the 
love of liberty. He never made a race of people so 
low in the scale of civilization or intelligence that it 
would welcome a foreign master. 

Those who would have this nation enter upon a 
career of empire must consider not only the effect of 
imperialism on the Filipinos, but they must also cal- 
culate its effects upon our own nation. We can not 
repudiate the principle of self-government in the 
Philippines without weakening that principle here. 

Lincoln said that the safety of this nation w^as not 
in its fleets, its armies, its forts, but in the spirit which 
prizes liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands, 
everywhere, and he warned his countrymen that they 
could not destroy this spirit without iDlanting the 
seeds of despotism at their own doors. 

Even now^ we are beginning to see the paralyzing 
influence of imperialism. Heretofore, this nation has 
been prompt to express its sympathy with those who 
were fighting for civil liberty. While our sphere of 
activity has been limited to the western hemisphere, 
our sympathies have not been bounded by the seas. 



THE INDIANAPOLIS SPEECH 123 

We have felt it due to ourselves and to the world, as 
well as to those who were struggling for the right to 
govern themselves, to proclaim the interest which our 
people have, from the date of their own independence, 
felt in every contest between human rights and arbi- 
trary power. Three-quarters of a century ago, when 
our nation was small, the struggles of Greece aroused 
our people, and Webster and Clay gave eloquent ex- 
pression to the universal desire for Grecian independ- 
ence. In 1896, all parties manifested a lively interest 
in the success of the Cubans, but now when a war is 
in progress in South Africa, which must result in the 
extension of the monarchial idea, or in the triumph of 
a republic, the advocates of imperialism in this 
country dare not say a word in behalf of the Boers. 
Sympathy for the Boers does not arise from any 
unfriendliness towards England; the American people 
are not unfriendly toward the people of any nation. 
This sympathy is due to the fact that, as stated in our 
platform, we believe in the principles of self-govern- 
ment, and reject, as did our forefathers, the claims of 
monarchy. If this nation surrenders its belief in the 
universal application of the principles set forth in the 
Declaration of Independence, it will lose the prestige 
^md influence which it has enjoyed among the nations 
is an exponent of popular government. 

Our opponents, conscious of the weakness of their 
cause, seek to confuse imperialism with expansion, 
and have even dared to claim Jefferson as a supporter 
of their policy. Jefferson spoke so freely and used 
language with such precision that no one can be ig- 



124 ' WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

norant of his views. On one occasion he declared : 
"If there be one principle more deeply rooted than 
any other in the mind of every American, it is that we 
should have nothing to do with conquest." And again 
he said: "Conquest is not in our principles; it is 
inconsistent with our government." 

The forcible annexation of territory to be governed 
by arbitrary power differs as much from the acquisi- 
tion of territory to be built up into states as a mon- 
archy differs from a democracy. The Democratic 
party does not oppose expansion, when expansion en- 
larges the area of the Republic and incorporates land 
which can be settled by American citizens, or adds to 
our population people who are willing to become citi- 
zens and are capable of discharging their duties as 
such. The acquisition of the Louisiana territory, 
Florida, Texas, and other tracts which have been se- 
cured from time to time enlarged the Republic, and 
the Constitution followed the flag into the new terri- 
tory. It is now proposed to seize upon distant terri- 
tory, already more densely populated than our own 
country, and to force upon the people a government 
for which there is no warrant in our Constitution or 
our laws. Even the argument that this earth belongs 
to those who desire to cultivate it and who have the 
physical power to acquire it can not be invoked to 
justify the appropriation of the Philippine islands by 
the United States. If the islands were uninhabited 
American citizens would not be willing to go there 
and till the soil. The white race will not live so near 
the equator. Other nations have tried to colonize in 



THE INDIANAPOLIS SPEECH 125 

the same latitude. The Netherlands have controlled 
Java for 300 years, and yet to-day there are less than 
60,000 people of European birth scattered among the 
25,000,000 natives. After a century and a half of 
English domination in India, less than one-twentieth 
of one per cent of the people of India are of English 
birth, and it requires an army of 70,000 British 
soldiers to take care of the tax collectors. Spain had 
asserted title to the Philippine islands for three cen- 
turies and jet, when our fleet entered Manila bay, 
there were less than 10,000 Spaniards residing in the 
Philippines. 

A colonial policy means that we shall send to the 
Philippine islands a few traders, a few^ taskmasters, 
and a few office holders, and an army large enough 
to support the authority of a small fraction of the 
people while they rule the natives. 

If we have an imperial policy we must have a great 
standing army as its natural and necessary comple- 
ment. The spirit which will justify the forcible an- 
nexation of the Philippine islands will justify the 
seizure of other islands and the domination of other 
people, and with wars of conquest we can expect a 
certain, if not rapid, growth of our military estab- 
lishment. That a large permanent increase in our 
regular army is intended by Republican leaders is not 
a matter of conjecture, but a matter of fact. In his 
message of December 5, 1898, the President asked for 
authority to increase the standing army to 100,000. 
In 1896 the army contained about 25,000. Within two 
years the President asked for four times that many, 



126 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

and a Republican House of Kepresentatives complied 
with the request after the Spanish treaty had been 
signed, and when no country was at war with the 
United States. If such an army is demanded when 
an imperial policy is contemplated, but not openly 
avowed, what may be expected if the people encourage 
the Republican party by endorsing its policy at the 
polls? A large standing army is not only a pecuniary 
burden to the people and, if accompanied by compul- 
sory service, a constant source of irritation, but it is 
ever a menace to a Republican form of government. 
The army is the personification of force, and militar- 
ism will inevitably change the ideals of the people 
and turn the thoughts of our young men from the arts 
of peace to the science of w^ar. The government which 
relies for its defense upon its citizens is more likely 
to be just than one which has at call a large body of 
professional soldiers. A small standing army and a 
well equipped and well disciplined state militia are 
sufficient at ordinary times, and in an emergency the 
nation should, in the future as in the past, place its 
dependence upon the volunteers who come from all 
occupations at their country's call and return to pro- 
ductive labor when their services are no longer re- 
quired — men who fight when the country needs fight- 
ers and work when the country needs workers. 

The Republican platform assumes that the Philip- 
pine islands will be retained under American sov- 
ereignty, and we have a right to demand of the Repub- 
lican leaders a discussion of the future status of the 
Filipino. Is he to be a citizen or a subject? Are we 



THE INDIANAPOLIS SPEECH 127 

to bring into the body politic eight or ten million 
Asiatics, so different from us in race and history that 
amalgamation is impossible? Are they to share with 
us in making the laws and shaping the destiny of this 
nation? No Republican of prominence has been bold 
enough to advocate such a proposition. The McEnery 
resolution, adopted by the Senate immediately after 
the ratification of the treaty, expressly negatives this 
idea. The Democratic platform describes the situa- 
tion when it says that the Filipinos can not be citizens 
without endangering our civilization. Who will dis- 
pute it? And what is the alternative? If the Filipino 
is not to be a citizen, shall we make him a subject? 
On that question the Democratic platform speaks with 
equal emphasis. It declares that the Filipino can not 
be a subject without endangering our form of govern- 
ment. A republic can have no subjects. A subject is 
possible only in a government resting upon force; he is 
unknown in a government deriving its just powers 
from the consent of the governed. 

The Eepublican platform says that "the largest 
measure of self-government consistent with their wel- 
fare and our duties shall be secured to them [the 
Filipinos] by law." This is a strange doctrine for a 
government which owes its very existence to the men 
who offered their lives as a protest against govern- 
ment without consent and taxation without represen- 
tation. In what respect does the position of the 
Republican party differ from the position taken by the 
English government in 1776? Did not the English 
government promise a good government to the colon- 



128 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

ists? What king ever promised a bad government to 
his people? Did not the English government promise 
that the colonists should have the largest measure 
of self-government consistent with their welfare and 
English duties? Did not the Spanish government 
promise to give to the Cubans the largest measure of 
self-government consistent with their welfare and 
Spanish duties? The whole difference between a mon- 
archy and a republic may be summed up in one sen- 
tence. In a monarch}^, the king gives to the people 
what he believes to be a good government; in a re- 
public the people secure for themselves what they 
believe to be a good government. The Republican 
party has accepted the European idea and planted 
itself upon the ground taken by George III., and by 
every ruler who distrusts the capacity of the people 
for self-government or denies them a voice in their 
own affairs. 

The Republican platform promises that some mea- 
sure of self-government is to be given the Filipinos by 
law ; but even this pledge is not fulfiled. Nearly six- 
teen months elapsed after the ratification of the treaty 
before the adjournment of Congress last June, and yet 
no law was passed dealing with the Philippine situa- 
tion. The will of the President has been the only law 
in the Philippine Islands wherever the American 
authority extends. Why does the Republican party 
hesitate to legislate upon the Philippine question? 
Because a law would disclose the radical departure 
from history and precedent contemplated by those 
who control the Republican party. The storm of pro- 



THE INDIANAPOLIS SPEECH 129 

test which greeted the Porto Rican bill was an indica- 
tion of what may be expected when the American 
people are brouglit face to face with legislation upon 
this subject. If the Porto Ricans, who welcomed an- 
nexation, are to be denied the guarantees of our Con- 
stitution, what is to be the lot of the Filipinos, who 
resisted our authority? If secret influences could 
compel a disregard of our plain duty toward friendly 
people, living near our shores, what treatment will 
those same influences provide for unfriendly people 
7,000 miles away? If, in this country where the 
people have the right to vote. Republican leaders 
dare not take the side of the people against the 
great monopolies which have grown up within the 
last few years, hoAv can they be trusted to protect the 
Filipinos from the corporations which are waiting 
to exploit the islands? 

Is the sunlight of full citizenship to be enjoyed by 
the people of the United States, and the twilight of 
semi-citizenship endured by the people of Porto Rico, 
while the thick darkness of perpetual vassalage covers 
the Philippines? The Porto Rico tariff law asserts 
the doctrine that the operation of the Constitution is 
confined to the forty-five states. The Democratic 
party disputes this doctrine and denounces it as re- 
pugnant to both the letter and spirit of our organic 
law. There is no place in our system of government 
for the deposit of arbitrary and irresponsible power. 
That the leaders of a great party should claim for any 
president or congress the right to treat millions of 
people as mere "possessions" and deal with them un- 



130 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

restrained by the Constitution or the bill of rights 
shows how far we have already departed from the an- 
cient land marks, and indicates what may be expected 
if this nation deliberately enters upon a career of em- 
pire. The territorial form of government is tempor- 
ary and preparatory, and the chief security a citizen 
of a territory has is found in the fact that he enjoys 
the same constitutional guarantees and is subject to 
the same general laws as the citizen of a state. Take 
away this security and his riglits will be violated and 
his interests sacrificed at the demand of those who 
have political influence. This is the evil of the colo- 
nial system, no matter by what nation it is applied. 

What is our title to the Philippine Islands? Do 
we hold them by treaty or by conquest? Did we buy 
them or did Ave take them? Did we purchase the peo- 
ple? If not, how did we secure title to them? Were 
they thrown in with the land? Will the Republicans 
say that inanimate earth has value, but that when 
that earth is molded by the Divine hand and stamped 
with the likeness of the Creator it becomes a fixture 
and passes with the soil? If governments derive their 
just powers from the consent of the governed, it is 
impossible to secure title to people, either by force or 
by purchase. We could extinguish Spain's title by 
treaty, but if we hold title we must hold it by some 
method consistent with our ideas of government. 
When we made allies of the Filipinos and armed them 
to fight against Spain, we disputed Spain's title. If 
we buy Spain's title we are not innocent purchasers. 
But even if we had not disputed Spain's title, she 



THE INDIANAPOLIS SPEECH 131 

could transfer no greater title than she had, and her 
title was based on force alone. We can not defend 
such a title, but as Spain gave us a quit-claim deed, 
we can honorably turn the property over to the party 
in possession. Whether any American official gave to 
the Filipinos formal assurance of independence is not 
material. There can be no doubt that we accepted 
and utilized the services of the Filipinos, and that 
when we did so we had full knowledge that they were 
fighting for their own independence, and I submit 
that history furnishes no example of turpitude baser 
than ours if we now substitute our yoke for the Span- 
ish yoke. 

Let us consider briefly the reasons which have been 
given in support of an imperialistic policy. Some say 
that it is our duty to hold the Philippine Islands. But 
duty is not an argument ; it is a conclusion. To ascer- 
tain what our duty is in any emergency, we must ap- 
ply well settled and generally accepted principles. It 
is our duty to avoid stealing, no matter whether the 
thing to be stolen is of great or little value. It is our 
duty to avoid killing a human being, no matter where 
the human being lives or to what race or class he be- 
longs. Everyone recognizes the obligation imposed 
upon individuals to observe both the human and 
moral law, but as some deny the application of those 
law^s to nations, it may not be out of place to quote 
the opinions of others. 

Jefferson, than whom there is no higher political 
authority, said : 



132 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

"I know of but one code of morality for men, wheth- 
er acting singly or collectively." 

Franklin, whose learning, wisdom, and virtue are a 
part of the priceless legacy bequeathed to us from the 
Revolutionary days, expressed the same idea in even 
stronger language when he said : 

"Justice is as strictly due between neighbor nations 
as between neighbor citizens. A highwayman is as 
much a robber when he plunders in a gang as when 
single; and the nation that makes an unjust war is 
only a great gang." 

Men may dare to do in crowds what they would not 
dare to do as individuals, but the moral character of 
an act is not determined by the number of those who 
join it. Force can defend a right, but force has never 
yet created a right. If it were true, as declared in the 
resolutions of intervention, that the Cubans "are and 
of right ought to be free and independent" (language 
taken from the Declaration of Independence^, it is 
equally true that the Filipinos "are and of right 
ought to be free and independent." The right of the 
Cubans to freedom was not based upon their proxim- 
ity to the United States, nor upon the language which 
they spoke, nor yet upon the race or races to which 
they belonged. Congress by a practically unanimous 
vote declared that the principles enunciated at Phil- 
adelphia in 1776 were still alive and applicable to the 
Cubans. Who will draw a line between the natural 
rights of the Cuban and the Filipino? Who will say 
that the former has a right to liberty and the latter 
has no rights which we are bound to respect? And, 



THE INDIANAPOLIS SPEECH 133 

if the Filipinos "are and of right ought to be free and 
independent," what right have we to force our govern- 
ment upon them without their consent? Before our 
duty can be ascertained, their rights must be deter- 
mined, and when their rights are once determined, it 
is as much our duty to respect those rights as it was 
the duty of Spain to respect the rights of the people of 
Cuba or the duty of England to respect the rights of 
the American colonists. Rights never conflict ; duties 
never clash. Can it be our duty to usurp political 
rights which belong to others? Can it be our duty to 
kill those who, following the example of our forefath- 
ers, love liberty well enough to fight for it? 

Some poet has described the terror which overcame 
a soldier who in the midst of battle discovered that he 
had slain his brother. It is written "All ye are breth- 
ren." Let us hope for the coming of the day when 
human life — which when once destroyed can not be 
restored — will be so sacred that it will never be taken 
except when necessary to punish a crime already com- 
mitted, or to prevent a crime about to be committed ! 

If it is said that we have assumed before the world 
obligations which make it necessary for us to perman- 
ently maintain a government in the Philippine Is- 
lands, I reply, first, that the highest obligation of this 
nation is to be true to itself. No obligation to any 
particular nation, or to all the nations combined, 
can require the abandonment of our theory of gov- 
ernment and the substitution of doctrines against 
which our whole national life has been a protest. And, 
second, that our obligation to the Filipinos, who in- 



134 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

habit the islands, is greater than anj obligation which 
we can owe to foreigners who have a temporary resi- 
dence in the Philippines or desire to trade there. 

It is argued by some that the Filipinos are incap- 
able of self-government and that, therefore, we owe 
it to the world to take control of them. Admiral 
Dewey, in an official report to the navy department, 
declared the Filipinos more capable of self-govern- 
ment than the Cubans and said that he based his 
opinion upon a knowledge of both races. But I will 
not rest the case upon the relative advancement of 
the Filipinos. Henry Clay, in defending the right of 
the people of South America to self-government, said : 

"It is the doctrine of thrones that man is too ignor- 
ant to govern himself. Their partisans assert his in- 
capacity in reference to all nations; if they can not 
command universal assent to the proposition, it is 
then demanded to particular nations; and our pride 
and our presumption too often make converts of us. 
I contend that it is to arraign the disposition of Prov- 
idence Himself to suppose that He has created be- 
ings incapable of governing themselves, and to be 
trampled on by kings. Self-government is the natural 
government of man." 

Clay was right. There are degrees of proficiency 
in the art of self-government, but it is a reflection up- 
on the Creator to say that He denied to any people 
the capacity for self-government. Once admit that 
some people are capable of self-government and that 
others are not and that the capable people have a 
right to seize upon and govern the incapable, and you 



THE INDIANAPOLIS SPEECH 135 

make force — brute force — the only foundation of gov- 
ernment and invite the reign of a despot. I am not 
willing to believe that an all-wise and an all-loving 
God created the Filipinos and then left them thou- 
sands of years helpless until the islands attracted 
the attention of European nations. 

Eepublicans ask, ''Shall we haul down the flag that 
floats over our dead in the Philippines?" The same 
question might have been asked when the American 
flag floated over Chapultepec and waved over the dead 
who fell there ; but the tourist who visits the City of 
Mexico finds there a national cemetery owned by the 
United States and cared for by an American citizen. 
Our flag still floats over our dead, but when the treaty 
with Mexico was signed, American authority with- 
drew to the Rio Grande, and I venture the opinion 
that during the last fifty years the people of Mexico 
have made more iDrogress under the stimulus of inde- 
pendence and self-government than they would have 
made under a carpet bag government held in place by 
bayonets. The United States and Mexico, friendly 
republics, are each stronger and happier than they 
would have been had the former been cursed and the 
latter crushed by an imperialistic policy, disguised as 
"benevolent assimilation." 

''Can we not govern colonies?" we are asked. The 
question is not what we can do, but what we ought to 
do. This nation can do whatever it desires to do, but 
it must accept responsibility for what it does. If the 
Constitution stands in the way, the people can amend 
the Constitution. I repeat, the nation can do what- 



136 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

ever it desires to do, but it can not avoid the natural 
and legitimate results of its own conduct. The young 
man upon reaching his majority can do what he 
pleases. He can disregard the teachings of his par- 
ents ; he can trample upon all that he has been taught 
to consider sacred; he can disobey the laws of the 
state, the laws of society, and the laws of God. He 
can stamp failure upon his life and make his very ex- 
istence a curse to his fellow men, and he can bring 
his father and mother in sorrow to the grave; but he 
can not annul the sentence, '"The wages of sin is 
death." And so with the nation. It is of age, and it 
can do what it pleases ; it can spurn the traditions of 
the past; it can repudiate the principles upon which 
the nation rests; it can employ force instead of 
reason ; it can substitute might for right ; it can con- 
quer weaker people ; it can exploit their lands, appro- 
priate their property, and kill their people ; but it can 
not repeal the moral law or escape the punishment 
decreed for the violation of human rights. 

^'Would we tread in the paths of tyranny, 

Nor reckon the tyrant's cost? 
Who taketh another's liberty 

His freedom is also lost. 
Would we win as the strong have ever won, 

Make read^^ to pay the debt, 
For the God who reigned over Babylon 

Is the God who is reigning yet.'' 

Some argue that American rule in the Philippine 
Islands will result in the better education of the Fil- 
ipinos. Be not deceived. If we expect to maintain 



THE INDIANAPOLIS SPEECH 137 

a colonial policy, we shall not find it to our advan- 
tage to educate the people. The educated Filipinos 
are now in revolt against us, and the most ignorant 
ones have made the least resistance to our domina- 
tion. If we are to govern them without their consent 
and give them no voice in determining the taxes which 
they must pay, we dare not educate them, lest they 
learn to read the Declaration of Independence and 
the Constitution of the United States and mock us for 
our inconsistency. 

The principal arguments, however, advanced by 
those who enter upon a defense of imperialism, are: 

First — That we must improve the present opportu- 
nity to become a world power and enter into interna- 
tional politics. 

Second— That our comm_ercial interests in the Phil- 
ippine Islands and in the orient make it necessary for 
us to hold the islands permanently. 

Third — That the spread of the Christian religion 
will be facilitated by a colonial policy. 

Fourth — That there is no honorable retreat from 
the position which the nation has taken. 

The first argument is addressed to the nation's 
pride and the second to the nation's pocket-book. The 
third is intended for the church member and the 
fourth for the partisan. 

It is a sufficient answer to the first argument to say 
that for more than a century this nation has been a 
world power. For ten decades it has been the most 
potent influence in the world, isot only has it been a 
world power, but it has done more to affect the poll- 



138 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

tics of the human race than all the other nations of 
the world combined. Because our Declaration of In- 
dependence was promulgated, others have been pro- 
mulgated. Because the patriots of 1776 fought for 
libert^^, others have fought for it ; because our consti- 
tution was adopted, other constitutions have been 
adopted. The growth of the principle of self govern- 
ment, planted on American soil, has been the over- 
shadowing political fact of the nineteenth century. It 
has made this nation conspicuous among the nations 
and given it a place in history such as no other nation 
has ever enjoyed. Nothing has been able to check the 
onward march of this idea. I am not willing that this 
nation shall cast aside the omnipotent weapon of 
truth to seize again the weapons of physical warfare. 
I would not exchange the glory of this republic for the 
glory of all the empires that have risen and fallen 
since time began. 

The permanent chairman of the last Bepublican 
National convention presented the pecuniary argu- 
ment in all its baldness, when he said : 

"We make no hypocritical pretense of being inter- 
ested in the Philippines solely on account of others. 
While we regard the welfare of those people as a 
sacred trust, we regard the welfare of the American 
people first. We see our duty to ourselves as well as 
to others. We believe in trade expansion. By every 
legitimate means within the province of government 
and constitution, we mean to stimulate the expan- 
sion of our trade and open new markets." 

This is the commercial argument. It is based upon 



THE INDIANAPOLIS SPEECH 139 

the theory that war can be rightly waged for pecun- 
iary advantage, and that it is profitable to purchase 
trade by force and violence. Franklin denied both of 
these propositions. When Lord Howe asserted that 
the acts of parliament, which brought on the Revolu- 
tion, were necessary to prevent American trade from 
passing into foreign channels, Franklin replied: 

^'To me it seems that neither the obtaining nor re- 
taining of any trade, how valuable soever, is an object 
for which men may justly spill each other's blood; 
that the true and sure means of extending and secur- 
ing commerce are the goodness and cheapness of com- 
modities, and that the profits of no trade can ever be 
equal to the expense of compelling it and holding it 
by fleets and armies. I consider this war against us, 
therefore, as both unjust and unwise." 

I place the philosophy of Franklin against the sor- 
did doctrine of those who would put a price upon the 
head of an American soldier and justify a war of con- 
quest upon the ground that it will pay. The Demo- 
cratic party is in favor of the expansion of trade. It 
would extend our trade by every legitimate and peace- 
ful means; but it is not willing to make merchandise 
of human blood. 

But a war of conquest is as unwise as it is unright- 
eous. A harbor and coaling station in the Philippines 
would answer every trade and military necessity, and 
such a concession could have been secured at any time 
without difficulty. 

It is not necessary to own people in order to trade 
with them. We carry on trade to-day with every part 



140 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

of the world, and our commerce has expanded more 
rapidly than the commerce of any European empire. 
We do not own Japan or China, but we trade with 
their people. We have not absorbed the republics of 
Central and South America, but we trade with them. 
It has not been necessary to have any political connec- 
tion with Canada or the nations of Europe, in order 
to trade with them. Trade can not be permanently 
profitable unless it is voluntary. W^hen trade is 
secured by force, the cost of securing it and retaining 
it must be taken out of the profits, and the profits are 
never large enough to cover the expense. Such a sys- 
tem would never be defended but for the fact that the 
expense is borne by all the people, while the profits are 
enjoyed by a few\ 

Imperialism would be profitable to the army con- 
tractors; it would be profitable to the ship owners, 
who would carry live soldiers to the Philippines and 
bring dead soldiers back; it would be profitable to 
those who would seize upon the franchises, and it 
would be profitable to the officials whose salaries 
would be fixed here and paid over there ; but to the far 
mer, to the laboring man, and to the vast majority of 
those engaged in other occupations, it would bring 
expenditure without return and risk without reward. 

Farmers and laboring men have, as a rule, small 
incomes, and, under systems which place the tax upon 
consumption, pay more than their fair share of the 
expenses of government. Thus the very people who 
receive least benefit from imperialism will be injured 
most by the military burdens which accompany it. 




< 

11. 



< 

CO 
UJ 

I 
I- 



THE INDIANAPOLIS SPEECH 1-11 

In addition to the evils which he and the farmer 
;share in common, the laboring man will be the first 
to suffer if oriental subjects seek work in the United 
States; the first to suffer if American capital leaves 
our shores to employ oriental labor in the Philippines 
to supply the trade of China and Japan ; the first to 
suffer from the violence which the military spirit 
arouses, and the first to suffer when the methods of 
imperialism are applied to our own government. 

It is not strange, therefore, that the labor organ- 
izations have been quick to note the approach of these 
dangers and prompt to protest against both militar- 
ism and imperialism. 

The pecuniary argument, though more effective 
with certain classes, is not likely to be used so often 
or presented with so much emphasis as the religious 
argument. If what has been termed the "gun-powder 
gospel" were urged against the Filipinos only, it 
would be a sufficient answer to say that a majority of 
the Filipinos are now members of one branch of the 
Christian church ; but the principle involved is one of 
much wider application and challenges serious con- 
sideration. 

The religious argument varies in positiveness from 
a passive belief that Providence delivered the Fili- 
pinos into our hands for their good and our glory, to 
the exultation of the minister who said that we ought 
to "thrash the natives (Filipinos) until they under- 
stand who we are," and that "every bullet sent, every 
cannon shot, and every flag waved means righteous- 
ness." 



142 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

We can not approve of this doctrine in one place un- 
less we are willing to apply it everywhere. If there is 
poison in the blood of the hand it will ultimately 
reach the heart. It is equally true that forcible Chris- 
tianity, if planted under the American flag in the far- 
aw^ay orient, will sooner or later be transplanted upon 
American soil. If true Christianity consists in carry- 
ing out in our daily lives the teachings of Christ, who 
will say that we are commanded to civilize with dyna- 
mite and proselyte with the sword? He who would 
declare the divine will must prove his authority either 
by Holy Writ or by evidence of a special dispensation. 
Imperialism finds no warrant in the Bible. The com- 
mand ^^go ye into all the world and j)reach the gospel 
to every creature" has no gatling gun attachment.- 
When Jesus visited a village of Samaria and the peo- 
ple refused to receive Him, some of the disciples sug- 
gested that fire should be called down from Heaven 
to avenge the insult, but the Master rebuked them 
and said : "Ye know not what manner of spirit ^^e are 
of; for the Son of Man is not come to destroy men's 
lives, but to save them." Suppose He had said : "We 
will thrash them until they understand who we are," 
how different would have been the history of Chris- 
tianity ! Compare, if you will, the swaggering, bully- 
ing, brutal doctrine of imperialism with the golden 
rule and the commandment "Thou shalt love thy 
neighbor as thyself." 

Love, not force, was the weapon of the Nazarene; 
sacrifice for others, not the exploitation of them, was 
His method of reaching the human heart. A mission- 



THE INDIANAPOLIS SPEECH 113 

ary recently told me that the stars and stripes once 
saved his life because his assailant recognized our 
flag as a flag that had no blood upon it. Let it be 
known that our missionaries are seeking souls instead 
of sovereignty; let it be known that instead of being 
the advance guard of conquering armies, they are 
going forth to help and to uplift^ having their loins 
girt about with truth and their feet shod with the pre- 
paration of the gospel of peace, wearing the breast- 

4 

plate of righteousness and carrying the sword of the 
spirit; let it be known that they are citizens of a na- 
tion w^hich respects the rights of the citizens of other 
nations as carefully as it protects the rights of its own 
citizens, and the welcome £:iven to our missionaries 
will be more cordial than the welcome extended to 
the missionaries of anv other nation. 

The argument made, by some, that it was unfortu- 
nate for the nation that it had anything to do with 
the Philippine islands, but that the naval victory at 
Manila made the permanent acquisition of those isl- 
ands necessary is also unsound. We won a naval vic- 
tory at Santiago, but that did not compel us to hold 
Cuba. The shedding of American blood in the Phil- 
ippine Islands does not make it imperative that we 
should retain possession forever; American blood was 
shed at San Juan hill and El Caney, and yet the Presi- 
dent has promised the Cubans independence. The 
fact that the American flag floats over Manila does 
not compel us to exercise perpetual sovereignty over 
the islands; the American flag waves over Havana 
to-day, but the President has promised to haul it 



144: WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

down when the flag of the Cuban republic is ready to 
rise in its place. Better a thousand times that our 
flag in the orient give way to a flag representing the 
idea of self government than that the flag of this re- 
public should become the flag of an empire. 

There is an easy, honest, honorable solution of the 
Philippine question. It is set forth in the Democratic 
platform and it is submitted with confidence to the 
American people. This plan I unreservedly endorse. 
If elected, I wull convene Congress in extraordinary 
session as soon as inaugurated and recommend an im- 
mediate declaration of the nation's purpose, first, to 
establish a stable form of government in the Philip- 
pine Islands, just as we are now establishing a stable 
form of government in Cuba ; second, to give independ- 
ence to the Filipinos just as we have promised to give 
independence to the Cubans; third, to protect the 
Filipinos from outside interference while they work 
out their destiny, just as we have protected the re- 
publics of Central and South America and are, by the 
Monroe Doctrine, pledged to protect Cuba. A Euro- 
pean protectorate often results in the plundering of 
the ward by the guardian. An American protectorate 
gives to the nation protected the advantage of our 
strength, without making it the victim of our greed. 
For three-quarters of a century the Monroe Doctrine 
has been a shield to neighboring republics, and yet it 
has imposed no pecuniary burden upon us. After 
the Filipinos had aided us in the war against Spain, 
we could not honorably turn them over to their former 
masters ; we could not leave them to be the victims of 



THE INDIANAPOLIS SPEECH 145 

the ambitious designs of European nations, and since 
we do not desire to make them a part of us or to hold 
them as subjects, we propose the only alternative, 
namelj, to give them independence and guard them 
against molestation from without. 

When our opponents are unable to defend their po- 
sition by argument they fall back upon the assertion 
that it is destiny, and insist that we must submit to it, 
no matter how much it violates moral precepts and 
our principles of government. This is a complacent 
philosophy. It obliterates the distinction between 
right and wrong and makes individuals and nations 
the helpless victims of circumstance. 

Destiny is the subterfuge of the invertebrate, who, 
lacking the courage to oppose error, seeks some plaus- 
ible excuse for supporting it. Washington said that 
the destiny of the Kepublican form of government 
was deeply, if not finally, staked on the experiment 
entrusted to the American people. How different 
Washington's definition of destiny from the Republi- 
can definition ! The Republicans say that this nation 
is in the hands of destiny ; Washington believed that 
not only the destiny of our own nation but the destiny 
of the Republican form of government throughout the 
world was entrusted to American hands. Immeasur- 
able responsibility! The destiny of this Republic is 
in the hands of its own people, and upon the success 
of the experiment here rests the hope of humanity. 
No exterior force can disturb this Republic, and no 
foreign influence should be permitted to change its 
course. What the future has in store for this nation 



14G WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

no one has authority to declare, but each individual 
has his own idea of the nation's mission, and he owes 
it to his country as well as to himself to contribute 
as best he may to the fulfilment of that mission. 

Mr. Chairman, and Gentlemen of the Committee : I 
can never fully discharge the debt of gratitude which 
I owe to my countrymen for the honors which they 
have so generously bestowed upon me; but, sirs, 
whether it be my lot to occupy the high office for 
which the convention has named me, or to spend the 
remainder of my days in private life, it shall be my 
constant ambition and my controlling purpose to aid 
in realizing the high ideals of those w^hose wisdom and 
courage and sacrifices brought this Republic into 
existence. 

I can conceive of a national destiny surpassing the 
glories of the present and the past — a destiny which 
meets the responsibilities of to-day and measures up 
to the possibilities of the future. Behold a republic, 
resting securely upon the foundation stones quarried 
by Revolutionary patriots from the mountain of 
eternal truth — a republic applying in practice and 
proclaiming to the w^orld the self-evident proposition, 
that all men are created equal ; that they are endowed 
with inalienable rights; that governments are insti- 
tuted among men to secure these rights ; and that gov- 
ernments derive their just powers from the consent 
of the governed. Behold a republic in w^hich civil and 
religious liberty stimulate all to earnest endeavor, and 
in which the law restrains every hand uplifted for a 
neighbor's injury — a republic in w^hich every citizen 



THE INDIANAPOLIS SPEECH 147 

is a sovereign but iu which no one cares to wear a 
crown. Behold a republic standing erect while em- 
pires all around are bowed beneath the weight of their 
own armaments — a republic whose flag is loved while 
other flags are only feared. Behold a republic in- 
creasing in population, in wealth, in strength and in 
influence, solving the problems of civilization and 
hastening the coming of an universal brotherhood — a 
republic which shakes thrones and dissolves aristoc- 
racies by its silent example and gives light and in- 
spiration to those who sit in darkness. Behold a 
republic gradually but surely becoming the supreme 
moral factor in the world's progress and the accepted 
arbiter of the world's disputes — a republic whose 
history, like the path of the just, ^'is as the shining 
light that shineth more and more unto the perfect 
day." 



BKYAN: THE MAN 

The firm hold which Mr. Bryan has over the confi- 
dence, esteem, and love of his followers was strikingly 
proven in the dark day's that followed November, 
1896. It is certain that no other public man of his 
time could have been the candidate of the Democratic 
party on the Chicago platform, suffered that severe 
reversal, and yet retained, undisputed and undis- 
turbed, the acknowledged leadership of the party. 
Whoso learns w^hy it was that Mr. Brj^an stood 
stronger in defeat then he was before has found the 
key to the man's greatness. Certainly it w^as not that 
he was a great and eloquent orator. For the orator, 
while always assured a hearing and a place under the 
lime-light, is still far from the actual leadership of his 
party. It was not because of the views which he enter- 
tained on public questions, for they were those of 
scores of other well known and able men. It was not 
because of his honesty and sincerity alone, any more 
than of his undoubted courage or his clean and up- 
right personality and blameless home life. These, 
while all real qualifications, were not essentials. 
Each and all of them were marked characteristics of 
other notable public men, although it is doubtful if 
any possessed them all alike in the same degree as 
Bryan. But there were other and rarer qualities, the 
most important, his cheerful and contagious optim- 



THE MAN 149 

ism and his intensity of character, which spoke in his 
every act and utterance. His optimism is an unwaver- 
ing faith in the ways and ends of the Creator ; a firm 
and abiding belief that "He doeth all things well.'^ 
The verse from Ella Wheeler Wilcox with which Mr. 
Bryan closes his "First Battle'' well illustrates this 
phase of his character : 

"Let those who have failed take courage; 

Tho' the enemy seems to have won, 

Tho' his ranks are strong, if he be in the wrong 

The battle is not yet done ; 

For sure as the morning follows 

The darkest hour of the night, 

No question is ever settled 

Until it is settled right.'' 

It is this inspiring belief, planted on a foundation 
so deep and so secure that no storm can shake it, that 
leaves Mr. Bryan as hopeful, confident, and serene in 
the darkest hour of defeat as his opponent can pos- 
sibly be with the paeans of victory ringing in his ears. 
It is a rare trait, this superb optimism. It wins, in- 
stinctively, the hearts and affections of men, only to 
inspire them to heroic effort under the most adverse 
surroundings. But its strongest feature is its effect 
on the possessor. For when that discouragement 
which comes from failure, and the inertia which dis- 
couragement brings in its train, is eliminated from 
a strong man's composition he becomes a god, with 
the power and greatness of the immortals. The scope 
of his vision is broadened, his mental horizon enlarges, 
fear and weakness are banished from his heart, and 



150 WILLIAM JENNINGS liRYAN 

his might becomes irresistible as he battles for the 
right as he sees the right. So Mr. Bryan's optimism 
has made him a strong, self-poised, cheerful, happy 
man, whose confidence and good spirits are conta- 
gious and whose following increases as his reverses 
multiply. 

His second marked characteristic, his intensity, 
is one even rarer than the first. The extent to which 
it is his it is most difficult to make clear. It may, per- 
haps, be best done by illustration drawn from the 
writer's personal experience. 

One Saturday, toward the end of the 1899 campaign, 
Mr. Bryan was speeding across southern Nebraska 
from east to west on a special train. Every half or 
quarter hour stops were made at stations along the 
route, and Mr. Bryan would hastily emerge from his 
car, make his way, generally unassisted, to a nearby 
platform, and speak for from ten minutes to an hour 
to the crowds assembled to hear him. It was most 
fatiguing work and done by a thoroughly worn-out 
man. For Mr. Bryan had for two weeks been con- 
stantly traveling by train and carriage, speaking from 
two to a dozen times daily, eating at irregular in- 
tervals, and sleeping not more than four or five hours 
out of each twenty-four. As a natural result his face 
was drawn and haggard, his muscles frequently 
twitching, and under his eyes were great black hol- 
lows. Yet at every stopping point, when he rose to 
face his fellow Nebraskans, the worn look would give 
way, the deep-set eyes would lighten with the fires of 
a holy zeal, and, in a voice that rang out clear and 



TIIK MAN 151 

strong and passionate be pleaded for the preserva- 
tion of the Kepublic and its ideals, inviolate and in- 
tact. The train was running on schedule time, of 
course, and at each stopping' point it was necessary 
for the engineer to toot his whistle and ring his bell, 
not once, but continuously, in order to tear Mr. Bryan 
away from his audience Avhen the alloted time had 
expired. Then the indefatigable campaigner, shak- 
ing scores of outstretched hands as he ran, would 
hasten to his car, and the train would speed along 
to the next stopping place. Mr. Bryan would no 
sooner enter his car than he dropped his head on a 
pillow and slept until a tap on the shoulder awoke 
him, and he rushed out to make another speech, gen- 
erally differing in form from any made that day or 
any previous day, though the substance of all was, of 
course, largely the same. Once, as the train was 
screaming along between stations Mr. Bryan called 
the writer to his state-room, where he lay at rest. He 
raised his head from the pillow as I entered, and 
started to speak. What words of suggestion or advice 
were on his tongue I shall never know, for, in the 
middle of his first sentence the tired head fell back, 
the lustrous eyes were closed, and his heavy breathing 
alone told that life remained in the man's worn and 
exhausted frame as he lay there fast asleep. 

Late in the afternoon of that same day Mr. Bryan's 
dinner was brought him on the train, and he ate — as 
he slept — between stations. His trav^eling compan- 
ions, it may be observed, had eaten hearty meals at a 
town lon^' passed, dining in leisure while Mr. Bryan, 



152 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

standing with bared head on a wind-swept platform, 
with a scorching sun beating down upon him, ad- 
dressed five thousand or more wildly cheering people. 
As he sat in his little compartment, hastily munching 
his food, there were Avith him Mr. Joseph A. Altsheler, 
of the New York World, and the writer, representing 
the Omaha World-Herald. One of us chanced to men- 
tion some interruption made at the last meeting, 
where a shrewd Republican partisan had raised a 
point which Mr. Bryan's ready repartee had quickly, 
if not efficiently, disposed of. As soon as the matter 
was mentioned Mr. Bryan turned from the tray on 
which were his fried chicken, cold slaw, and coffee. 
And there, his eyes glowing like lakes of molten metal, 
his expressive features all in play, in the voice of one 
who addressed a multitude, he took up that Republi- 
can's sophism and analyzed it for the benefit of us 
twain. Such was the concentrated and awful inten- 
sity of the man that it thrilled me to the core, and, 
under that burning gaze and vibrant, moving voice, 
in such an unusual entourage, I trembled with an 
emotion I could not name. 

It was near midnight of that day when the train 
reached Benkelman, in far western Nebraska, where 
the last speech was to be delivered. The warm day 
had been succeeded by a night that was almost bitter 
cold, and, as we alighted from the train, tired, sleepy, 
and hungry, the cold, fierce wind from the mountains 
swooped down on us, and pierced us through and 
through. At that late hour, and in that semi-arid, 
scantily populated country, there were patiently wait- 



THE MAN 153 

ing, wrapped in their great coats, nearly fifteen hun- 
dred people, most of whom had driven from twenty 
to one hundred miles "to hear Bryan speak." 

In the course of that day Mr. Bryan had already 
spoken sixteen times. To do this he had risen before 
five o'clock in the morning and had traveled over two 
hundred miles. At Benkelman, it was agreed, he 
should speak not longer than fifteen minutes, and go 

to bed. 

The speaker's stand was at the principal street in- 
tersection of the village. It was gaily decorated with 
flags and bunting, and lighted by flaring gas jets. The 
piercing mountain wind swooped down on it like a 
wolf on the fold. Up on this eminence the worn and 
wearied campaigner, half dead from want of sleep and 
his constant exertions, was hurried. Shrill volleys 
of cheers and yells rose to the heavens. There was 
a moment's silence. Then, on the cold air, there fell 
the deep, melodious, serene voice of the orator, in 
words of earnest protest and warning, in a magnifi- 
cent plea for the Eepublic. For ten or twelve minutes 
we, who were his traveling companions, remained; 
and though our eyes were heavy and our senses dulled, 
though we shivered from the cold even as we trembled 
with exhaustion, the splendid enthusiasm of that 
hardy little band of frontiersmen warmed our hearts, 
and we cheered with them. But, in a few minutes, 
tired nature called loud to us, and we plodded to the 
hotel, a block and a half away. We sat for a half hour 
about the blazing fire, absorbing the grateful warmth. 
Through the closed doors and windows there came to 



154 WILLIAM JENNINGS BUYAN 

US, ever and anon, the rich and powerful voice of the 
orator down the street, punctuated by the wild yells 
of applause that came from the delighted men of the 
sand-hills. Again we retreated, — this time to our 
bed chambers. My teeth chattered like castanets as 
I disrobed. And now I could plainly hear the orator's 
voice, — sometimes his very words, — words that 
thrilled and pulsated with the life of an animate 
thing. I pulled the blankets and comforters close 
about me, and fell into the sleep of utter exhaustion. 
The next morning we learned that, for just one hour 
and three quarters Mr. Bryan had stood in that bitter, 
piercing wind, under the inscrutable stars of midnight 
on the prairie, and preached the gospel of democracy. 
Do you gather, now, what I mean in saying that Mr. 
Br^^an's intensity is something most difficult to de- 
scribe? It is something that knows not fear, nor hun- 
ger, nor exhaustion; that keeps him moving on, — 
ever and steadily on toward the goal, unswerved and 
unhindered by those hardships, trials, and obstacles 
that check the course of other men, or cause them to 
turn into broader and easier paths. 

It is this intensity of character and purpose that 
makes heroes and martyrs. It also makes fanatics. 
But Mr. Bryan is no fanatic; his stubborn determin- 
ation and unyielding purpose is tempered with mental 
equipoise, good judgment, and common sense. 
f The first impression one receives of Bryan as a man, 
and the last one to fade, is that of his reckless sincer- 
ity. Right or wrong, he is honest; he is of such a 
nature that he can not be otherwise; and all things for 



THE ISIAN 155 

good or evil, for success or defeat, must subordinate 
themselves to his personal conception of duty. He 
possesses all those qualities common to all great men, 
and some that but very few great men can claim. He 
has few friends among the rich men of the nation, and 
is a stranger to fashionable "society ;" but he is loved 
and trusted by the millions who follow him with a 
devotion such as no other American has won. At his 
home or abroad, among his children or with his neigh- 
bors, or on his well-kept farm, may be found a kindly, 
upright, debt-paying, unassuming citizen, full of a 
gentle rollicking humor, a man without an impure 
thought or act, a profoundly religious Presbyterian, 
a man who does not smoke, yet who does not hesitate, 
on occasion, to offer cigars to his friends; who will 
sit hour after hour in tobacco-laden air, sharing in the 
conversation of those whose mouths are chimneys for 
the time. He never drinks wine or liquor, yet he never 
flaunted a phylactery, or called names when the clink 
of glasses was heard. In all things a temperate and 
abstemious man, yet, such is his toleration that there 
Is nothing oppressive about his being better than most 
of us. 

In personal appearance as well as mental gifts, Mr. 
Bryan is highly favored. Before uttering a word, his 
magnetic influence wins for him the favor of his audi- 
ence. Simple is his delivery and bearing. "As he 
stands before his listeners," said Mr. R. L. Metcalfe, 
in a book published four years ago : "he presents a bold 
and striking picture; intelligence is stamped on every 
feature; he commences in the soft, pleasant tone. 



156 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

instantly riveting jour attention upon him. Your 
eyes are fastened upon the orator. As he moves, you 
in spirit move with him ; as he advances to his climax 
his audience advances with him. In perfect harmony 
orator and audience travel over the path of thought, 
until the climax is reached, and then, as the last tone 
of the deep, rich, melodious voice of the orator is 
uttered with a dramatic force, there breaks forth the 
full, earnest applause that marks the approval of 
those who listen. The hand of the orator is raised; 
instantly perfect silence follows. The sweet tones of 
the marvelous voice are again heard w^ithin the enclos- 
ure, no matter how^ vast. 

"There is much in Mr. Bryan's oratory that recalls 
to us many of our noted speakers of long ago. Search 
his speeches through, whether in Congress, before the 
convention, or on the stump, and you will find them 
absolutely free from personalities. No audience ever 
sat within the sound of his voice and caught a word 
that would appeal to the lower passions of anger, hate, 
or revenge. He is always the master of himself." 

The directness, simplicity, and purity of Mr. Bry- 
an's style as an orator and the loftiness and beauty 
of his sentiment are well shown in the appended ex- 
cerpt from one of his Congressional speeches on 
"Money," in which occurs his famous apostrophe to 
Thomas Jefferson : 

"There are wrongs to be righted ; there are evils to 
be eradicated; there is injustice to be removed; there 
is good to be secured for those who toil and wait. In 
this fight for equal law^s we can not fail, for right is 



THE MAN loi 

mighty and will in time triumph over all obstacles. 
Even if our eyes do not behold success, we know that 
our labor is not in vain, and we can lay dow^n our 
weapons, happy in the promise given by Bryant to 
the soldier : 

^Yea, though thou lie upon the dust, 
When they who help thee flee in fear 
Die full of hope and manly trust 
Like those who fall in battle here. 
Another hand by sword shall yield ; 
Another hand the standard Avave ; 
Till from the trumpet's mouth is pealed 
The blast of triumph o'er the grave.' 

"Let us, then, with the courage of Andrew Jack- 
son, apply to present conditions the principles taught 
by Thomas Jefferson — Thomas Jefferson, the greatest 
constructive statesman whom the world has ever 
known ; the greatest warrior who ever battled for hu- 
man liberty. He quarried from the mountain of eter- 
nal truth the four pillars upon whose strength all 
popular government must rest. In the Declaration 
of American Independence, he proclaimed the princi- 
ples with which there is, without which there can not 
be, 'a government of the people, by the people, and for 
the people.' When he declared that all men are cre- 
ated equal; that they are endowed by their creator 
with certain inalienable rights; that among these are 
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to 
secure these rights governments are instituted among 
men, deriving their just powers from the consent of 
the governed,' he declared all that lies between the 
alpha and omega of the Democracy. 



158 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

"Alexander ^wept for other worlds to conquer/ 
after he had carried his victorious banner throughout 
the then known world. Napoleon ^rearranged the 
map of Europe with his sword' amid the lamentations 
of those by whose blood he was exalted; but when 
these and other military heroes are forgotten and 
their achievements disappear in the cycle's sweep of 
years, children will still lisp the name of Jefferson, 
and freedom will ascribe due praise to him who filled 
the kneeling subject's heart with hope and bade him 
stand erect — a sovereign among his peers." 

In all of his rapid utterances and unpremeditated 
sentences one would fail to detect the slightest lapse 
from good English; not only good, but admirable. 
His talk is not that of a pedant, — far from it; but he 
does speak like a cultivated, well-read man; like a 
polished man of letters, but not so polished as to leave 
nothing but the gloss apparent. You may search 
his numerous speeches, lectures, and addresses with- 
out finding the slightest ^'lapsus linguae/' and all 
without sterility or banality. In his speeches he 
shows a very remarkable versatility. "He will talk 
along in a colloquial manner," says Mr. Metcalfe, 
"making you laugh or stirring your heartstrings 
with his pathos as he wills, and suddenly he will 
throw forth his periods in language that makes 
one involuntarily suspect of plagiarism from Milton 
or the prophets. Simplest words are chosen, and 
they are formed in short, pithy sentences. No word 
is used solely for its sound; the mere jingle of words 
has no place in the mental workshop of our orator. 



THE MAN 159 

To him words are the servants of thought, and take 
their real beauty from the thought that blazes through 
them. His style is as pure and captivating as that of 
Irving or Addison, and not dissimilar to either. But 
style with him, as with those two great masters, is 
valued not for itself, but because it conveys in the 
most pleasing manner the thoughts which he would 
have others know. 

' ^'Mr. Bryan is not averse to the employment of the 
thoughts of others wherever they add force and attrac- 
tiveness to the argument in hand. Accordingly, we 
find his speeches interspersed with quotations from 
some of the best writers in both prose and poetry, but 
in each instance the quotation has a natural fitness 
for the place in which it is found. There are some 
productions which pass for oratory that are mere 
mechanisms — the offspring of minds cold and plod- 
ding without a ray of genius to illumine their path. 
The work of genius springs spontaneously from the 
depths of the heart ruled by purity." 

In the preparation of his deliverances Mr. Bryan 
reads widely and extensively, exhausting all the avail- 
able sources of information. By carefully and 
thoroughly acquainting himself with every possible 
phase of his subject, by viewing it in all lights, he 
prepares himself not only to prove the correctness of 
his own position, but to meet every objection that may 
be offered against him. 

In the diction of his speech the most acceptable 
language is chosen, and so clear and simple do the 
most profound thoughts appear when they come 



IGO WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

fresli-coined from his brain, that men have no diffi- 
culty in comprehending them in all their force. 

But it takes more than good English to make a great 
public man, though good language is one of the most 
essential features of the part. An instance that is 
told will illustrate one of his other qualifications. On 
his arrival in a large city in the East, he had been 
taken for a drive, and a number of people were wait- 
ing for him when he alighted on his return. All the 
American people seem to consider it a duty to shake 
hands with a public man, and these were there for 
that purpose. Among them was a faded woman, ap- 
parently having worked out her hopes and ambitions; 
while her face showed refinement and intellectu- 
ality, her hands were gnarled by years of labor. As 
the candidate stepped from the gay carriage, he was 
at at once encircled by a throng of local dignitaries, 
who successfully monoiDolized his attention, to the 
hopeless exclusion of the woman, who was thought- 
lessly jostled aside. 

Mr. Bryan, glancing quickly about, saw her turn- 
ing away, her disappointment shown in her worn 
face, and, maneuvering about, he delicately managed 
to bring himself in front of her, and, as he saw her face 
light with pleasure, he extended his hands and mur- 
mured a few words of pleasant meaning to her and 
passed on. 

It is extremely doubtful if, among the public men of 
all time, there has lived one more abounding in a 
superb vitality, or possessing so magnificent a phy- 
sique as Mr. Bryan. In his case, as in that of most 



THE MAN IGl 

Qien of profound ineutalitj, the powerful mind is 
found with powerful muscles and a strong constitu- 
tion to back it in its contests. His massively moulded 
frame, capable of enduring the severest hardships and 
nerve-racking strains, is the result of a clean, strong 
ancestry and pure and temperate living in the life- 
giving atmosphere of the great West. 

Altogether Mr. Bryan is a good specimen of an 
American. He is, for example, neat in his dress, but 
his apparel is the least obtrusive part of him. He is 
frank, companionable, courteous without subservi- 
ency, aggressive without boorish insistence, well 
poised, witty and yet cleanly minded, learned without 
conceit. And he loves his family above all else on 
earth. At one place a hasty departure from a hotel 
had to be made to catch a train, and one of the party 
took Mr. Bryan's coat by mistake. The discovery was 
made as soon as the garment was put on, and to ascer- 
tain to whom it belonged the wearer put his hands in 
the pocket to see if any article might be found that 
would serve for identification. There were only two 
things found, and those were photographs of Mr. 
Bryan's family. He had evidently put them where he 
could find them most readily. 

One can not help but remember the marvelous cam- 
paign Bryan made four years ago. A terrible cam- 
paign for mind and body; no one who traveled with 
him will ever forget it. As for Bryan himself — - 
though, needless to say, he worked harder, thought 
more, and shouldered an infinitel}^ heavier responsi- 
bilitv than all the newspaper reporters who kept 



162 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

constantly in his wake — he was least fatigued of all. 
Hoarse and husky he certainly did become toward the 
end — speaking from the rear end of a train to open 
air crowds of thousands, a dozen times a day, and at 
the top of his voice. But Bryan, upon a physique of 
the most vigorous and massive kind, inspired by a 
stupendous vitality, which should keep him in good 
condition for sixty years to come, had superimposed 
a brain of the healthiest, keenest, and most capable 
sort. In addition he had a colossal firmness, and an 
unmitigable will ; he had thorough belief in the good- 
ness of his cause, and in himself as its champion ; and 
finally he understood the people, loved them, was in 
touch with them, and won their confidence to an ex- 
tent and to a degree of enthusiasm that can not be 
paralleled in modern times. Had some of the quali- 
ties above named been less in him, or more, he might 
have been a broader statesman; bat he would not have 
been so mighty and formidable a leader of men. 

Other men are admired or feared, or can si)end 
money, or swing a machine; but Bryan is personally 
trusted as no other man is, and as he deserves to be. 
*^Bryan is a man standing plumb on his own feet, 
other candidates have been propped on their feet by 
other persons. Which will last the longer? No man 
can count on the ultimate triumph of his cause, or 
even know how strong or how weak it is, unless he 
comes out flat-footed and tells the people exactly what 
it contemplates and requires. He must show the 
seamy side as well as the smooth one; else, when the 
seamy side shows itself (as it is certain to do) the 



THE MAN 163 

people will leap to the conclusion that the fabric is 
seamy on both sides, and the reaction will sweep it out 
of existence. McKinley, in laboring to make the 
people believe that his policy is all sweetness, honor, 
and virtue, is preventing himself from discovering 
how abhorrent it really is to the desires and wishes of 
the people." 

Bryan's method is just the opposite of President 
McKinley's. The only criticism to be passed on him is 
that he is too uncompromisingly outspoken and sin- 
cere. He says things that make his own party friends 
and managers shudder. He never strives for popular- 
ity except in so far as it may be consistent with truth 
and right. He does not want to please any one who 
can not be pleased with facts and realities. Bryan, 
in short, from the standpoint of mere policy, always 
puts his ugly foot forward, always turns his seamy 
side, always says "If you don't have me this way, I 
am not to be had at all." 



HOME LIFE 

A very wholesome theory that a man's home is his 
castle and that the sanctuary of private life is one 
that must be respected has no application in America 
to a public man. The fact that few public men 
quarrel with the general idea upon this subject proves 
that it has its basis in sound judgment and honest 
desire for greater intimacy rather than in impertinent 
curiosity. 

In the case of Mr. Bryan he has never quarreled 
with this widely held theory. For ten j^ears he has 
been in the glare of publicity. From the night, a 
decade ago, when he discomfited the champion of 
Republican politics in the opening debate of his first 
congressional campaign, a light has been constantly 
turned upon him and from him to his home life. That 
he has come out from under this strong scrutiny a 
more commanding figure, viewed either from the 
standpoint of the wise statesman or the typical head 
of an American family, is a statement that will meet 
with no attempt at refutation. 

On the first day of October next Mr. Bryan will 
have been married sixteen years. The ceremony was 
the culmination of a courtship extending over a 
period of four years, a wooing that had its inspiration 
in the atmosphere of school life, and which was con- 
tinued during the years when he was a diligent stu- 




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HOME LIFE 165 

dent of the lav. and a struggling young attorney with 
the unblighted courage a..d the indomitable energy 
that have come to be such marked characteristics of 
the man. They first met at a reception given in the 
parlors of the Presbyterian Academv at Jacksonville, 
111., to the young men of Illinois College. Mrs. Bryan, 
then Mary Baird, was a student at the Academy, and 
Mr. Bryan was in attendance at the College. There 
was little of romance attached to either their meeting 
or their courtship. Both were young, he twenty, she 
nineteen. Some sentimentalist has told that she was 
first attracted to him by hearing him recite some 
school book classics. The fact is that some friend 
pointed her out to Mr. Bryan as a girl he "ought to 
meet." And mutual friends introduced them. 

Miss Baird was born at Perry, 111., on the seven- 
teenth day of June, 1861. Her father was a merchant, 
one of a firm that conducted a general store in that 
town. His employment gave Mr, Baird, naturally 
a studious man, much leisure, and this he improved by 
reading. His daughter inherited his taste for litera- 
ture and it has abided with her. The invalidism of her 
mother prevented her from finishing the course she 
had begun at Monticello Seminary, at Godfrey, IlL, 
but later she was able to attend the academy at Jack- 
sonville, from which she graduated with first honors 
of her class. 

The young couple began their married life in a little 
home of their own in Jacksonville, With the prudent 
care that has always distinguished both of them, they 
postponed their happiness until he had secured a prac= 



166 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

tice sufficient to support them and until they were 
able to have a roof-tree of their own. Three years 
after their marriage Mr. Bryan came west on a busi- 
ness trip for a client. At Lincoln he met an old 
friend and classmate, A. R. Talbot. Talbot had made 
an excellent beginning in the West, and he suggested 
to Bryan that he locate at Lincoln and join his law 
firm. Mr. Bryan said little at the time. A few 
months after his return, however, he wrote to Mr. 
Talbot and asked him if he was in earnest in making 
the proposition. Mr. Talbot replied that he was, and 
outlined the prospects in the West, then the center of 
a vast speculation in lands and town lots. Mr. Bryan 
had been enchanted with the city of Lincoln when he 
first saw it, and he had simply waited until he could 
talk it over with his wife. 

In this sentiment lies the keynote of the perfect 
sympathy that has been so marked a characteristic of 
their wedded life. Mr. Bryan came first, his wife and 
his young daughter remaining in Jacksonville until he 
had become settled. They then joined him. They 
immediately began the erection of a modest home in 
Lincoln, buying a building lot on D street, and upon 
it erected the home he now occupies, at No. 1625. The 
money was furnished by Mr. Baird, but has long since 
been paid. Three children have been born to them, 
Ruth, now nearly fifteen, William, aged eleven, and 
Grace, aged nine. The first named is now a registered 
student at the seminary at Godfrey, where the mother 
first began her college career. 

Even the most casual visitor to the Bryan resi- 



HOME LIFE 167 

dence is impressed with the distinctive home atmos- 
phere of the place. Mrs. Bryan, as its presiding 
genius, has stamped upon it the impress of her indi- 
viduality, no less marked in that sphere than her 
husband's in his. The house itself is little more than 
a cottage, although it boasts of a second story and a 
cupola. Outwardly its lines are a little more im- 
pressive than when it was first built. This can be 
traced to the addition within the past year of a many- 
columned porch, stretching across its entire front 
and bending in a graceful curve to a point midway of 
the rear. With its paneled roof and the electric 
lights, its cosy corners and inviting arm chairs, it is 
an enticing retreat, and here the Bryan family spend 
most of their waking hours in the summer months. 

There is no ostentation displayed in the furnishings 
of the Bryan residence. The parlor is the parlor of 
the well-to-do middle class. The sitting room is 
simply furnished, but home-like and inviting. The 
library is the work-shop and no unnecessary tools are 
lying about. On the walls hang large portraits of 
Washington, Jefferson, Jackson, and Lincoln, and 
steel engravings of Benton, Webster, and Calhoun. 
They are inexpensive pictures, but typical of the ideals 
of the occupants of the room. Another picture shows 
Henry Clay, addressing his colleagues in the United 
States Senate. The artist's perspective was f?adly at 
fault, but it was not the art, but the subject, that 
attracted Mr. Bryan. The library is an extensive one, 
but unique in its character. Fiction and the classics 
find very little room. In their places are histories. 



168 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

orations, works on political economy, lives and 
speeches of famous men, who have helped build the 
nation of the past, dissertations and addresses upon 
the hundred and one questions that have vexed and 
still perplex the modern school of statesmanship. 
Upon few of these has any dust accumulated, and 
upon all of them are the unmistakable signs of fre- 
quent usage. 

The characteristic that strikes the visitor most is 
the hon homme^ the camaraderie^ of the household. A 
wholesome sympathy seems to be the bond that unites 
all members. Neither the father nor the mother is a 
strict disciplinarian. They do not believe in tyran- 
nizing over their children. They believe in encour- 
aging their respective bents, and in guiding them in 
the right channels, rather than in forcing in the ways 
hallowed by tradition. Mrs. Bryan is essentially a 
home body ; her husband and children are her chief est, 
but not her only cares. She is a mentor to them all. 
Miss Ruth is much like her father in temperament. 
She is quick and impulsive, warm-hearted and gener- 
ous. Her popularity among her girl friends is at- 
tested by the number that throng her lawn every 
evening. William is a sturdy youth in build, and, 
boy-like, more self assertive than his sisters. As his 
father is a typical American man, so is the youth a 
typical American boy, fun-loving and possessed of a 
harmless mischievousness that often disturbs the 
young girls who are his older sister's confidantes. 
Grace, the youngest, is delicate in health, and her 
father's favorite. It is to him she goes with her 



HOME LIFE 1^)9 

childish troubles, sure of the sympathy that never 
fails her. 

Mr. Bryan takes great pride in his household, and 
he bends every energy to the end that the bonds of 
mutual confidence and love, the elements so essential 
in a perfect home, may be strengthened and cemented. 
Every hour that he can give to them he gladly spares. 
For four years he has had no other office, no other 
working place, than in this home. After the cam- 
paign of 1896 he gave up, to all intents and purposes, 
his down town office, and has spent his time at home. 
His office is now in his library, an inviting room open- 
ing off the parlor on one side, and the sitting room 
on the other. His work is performed on a big flat- 
topped desk that occupies a goodly share of the floor 
sj)ace. Here he is surrounded by book-cases and 
statuettes, by curious mementoes, ink stands, canes, 
a hundred and one articles that admirers in all sec- 
tions and climes of the country have sent him. Most 
of these have been gathered together in a glass-cov- 
ered compartment that separates the two big book- 
cases. 

Mr. Bryan finds that his best work is done with his 
wife as his counselor and guide. She has a place on 
one side of the big desk, he on the other. She is no 
less indefatigable as a worker than he. She finds time 
between her consultations with him, when an im- 
portant work is on hand, to care for her household, 
and to direct the work of the one domestic employed. 
Mrs. Bryan's thorough understanding and apprecia- 
tion of every detail of his labors make her companion- 



170 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

ship and aid almost indispensable. Together they 
have gone over the details of his campaigns in the 
past years, and with him she still plans for the future. 
What he writes, she either passes upon or assists in 
its production. Her self -poise, marred by no self -con- 
sciousness, but marked by a quiet dignity, is one of 
her remarkable possessions. Perhaps the best de- 
lineation of the characteristics of this woman, re- 
markable in many ways, is furnished by the eminent 
novelist, Julian Hawthorne, who spent some time at 
the Bryan home during the past summer. Of her he 
said, ^'Mrs. Bryan is as unusual a woman as her hus- 
band is a man, but she is so unobtrusive that few 
people have much idea of her true character. I had 
the opportunity to learn something of her during the 
campaign of '96, and I well recollect her admirable 
bearing at the great meeting in Madison Square 
Garden, when she was recognized and greeted on en- 
tering her box by more than ten thousand people. It 
was a tremendous ordeal for a woman to undergo. 
But she sustained herself with steadiness and self-pos- 
session, remarkable in any woman, but more than 
remarkable in her, who had always lived in quiet 
domestic ways, occupied with her husband, her 
children, and her household duties. She is a woman 
of great courage and unshakable faith, of exceptional 
intellect, also, nourished with adequate education. 
She possesses the coolness of judgment which must 
often have served him well in times of doubt. She is 
not led away by imagination or hope, but sees things 
as they are, and resolutely faces facts. Should the de- 



HOME LIFE 171 

crees of Providence see fit to place her in a position of 
the first ladj of the land, I should have no fear that 
she would discharge her duties irreproachably. A 
true American woman, she is such as you may always 
be glad to match against the great dames of the old 
world. The dominant expression of her face is pene- 
tration, combined with a gentle composure. But there 
is the sparkle of demure humor in her eyes, and she 
can use speech as the most delicate of rapiers when 
she chooses. It is easy to know her as an acquaint- 
ance, but I surmise that no one really knows her ex- 
cept her husband, and probably she will be able 
continually to discover new resouj'ces and depths even 
to him. She is a good woman, with strong religious 
convictions, and she regards Bryan's political aspira- 
tions from that point of view. If it is the will of 
God that he shall reach the highest place among his 
countrymen she will accept the mission with good 
will and confidence. But should he be defeated she 
will welcome the life of obscurity with unshaken 
equanimity, believing that the councils of the Al- 
mighty are unsearchable, but faithful. If she be des- 
tined to higher things, the example to the nation, 
irrespective of party, of such a wife and such a mother 
as she is, can not but be beneficial. If not, Those also 
serve who only stand and wait.' " 

Sociability is one of the graces that attach to her 
naturally. The number of visitors to her husband is 
so large and his amiability so great, that if Mrs. 
Bryan did not maintain a watchfulness over them 
they would consume all of his hours. This guardian- 



172 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

ship of his time has imbued her with a little more 
sternness than is her nature, but at the same time has 
endowed her with shrewdness of discernment that 
enables her to gauge every one's errand with astonish- 
ing accuracy. The true democracy of the man is 
shown in his earnest desire that even the lowest of his 
callers shall be received with the same consideration 
bestowed upon the great ones, and no visitor ever 
leaves the Bryan home, even though he may not have 
gained his wish, without the consciousness of the 
gentle courtesy and a full-souled welcome. 

But Mrs. Bryan is in no sense a society woman. 
She is of a turn of mind too serious and too well 
poised to enable her to find enjoyment in the frivoli- 
ties and vanities that go to make up so much of the 
life of the society woman. She likes to meet with her 
friends and talk with them, and she misses no oppor- 
tunity to indulge in this pleasure. Club and church 
work take up much of her leisure. She has been 
active for years in the work of the Nebraska state 
federation of women's clubs. She can write, and fre- 
quently does, for newspapers and periodicals. She 
can also speak and speak well, but this she does rarely. 
Her range of information is as varied as that of her 
husband, and she knows the ins and outs of politics 
as well as she does the theories of good government, 
and the vagaries of the different schools of political 
economy. For years Mrs. Bryan's father has resided 
with them. Now he is sightless and infirm, but his 
hours are cheered and his burden lightened by the 
loving care of his daughter. 



HOME LIFE 173 

The passing years have dealt very gently with Mrs. 
Bryan. She is above the average in height, but her 
figure is matronly. Her face is pale, but there is no 
pallor, the graceful curves of youth have softened in 
outline, but in manner she has gained the dignity that 
does not hint of reserve. Mrs. Bryan is always well 
dressed, the unobtrusiveness and appropriateness of 
her garments marking the taste of the wearer. Her 
gowns are usually of one color, relieved here and there 
by the bright tints women love. 

"Mrs. Bryan's whole life has been one of study,'' 
says Miss Wright, of Lincoln, a friend of the family. 
"Long before she could read she knew the names of all 
the bugs her little hoe turned up in the garden. In 
her early life the doctor said she must be kept out of 
doors. Luckily she did not like indoor life. All day 
long she tagged her father, and they played together 
in the garden. By the time she was old enough for 
books she was kin to everything they told about. She 
idealized the earth and its generating and regenerat- 
ing character. From a weak child she has grown to 
be a strong woman with rare power of endurance and 
concentration. She and her father would sit on the 
porch at night and study the skies, and the Greek and 
Norse stories of the stars were repeated until she had 
committed all of them to memory. He told her how 
far away they were and what a speck the world would 
look if it could be seen from Venus. The idea of the 
immensity of the Universe and the relation of the 
world to the solar system seldom enters the mind of a 
child, but with Mary Baird, it was the most interest- 



1T4 WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

ing story that could be told. Early star-gazing and 
her father's influence trained her to think of things 
abstractly, nakedly, and without the impediments of 
custom and fashion. During her first days in school, 
her text-books were distasteful, as they were new, 
but she studied them nevertheless, and soon w^as at 
the head of her class. This habit of study has clung 
to her ever since." 

Social dissipation is unknown in the Bryan house- 
hold. Since Miss Ruth has grown to the dignity of 
young womanhood, and has gathered about her a bevy 
of young friends, an added gaiety has been given. She 
has had her little parties, but her parents receive 
rarely, and then but informally. The Bryans have 
several carriages and horses, and in these they find 
their chief amusement. Once in a w^hile Mr. and Mrs. 
Bryan are seen at the theatres, but only at the best 
plays. Mr. Bryan has grown much stouter in late 
years, and has taken to frequent horseback rides as 
both an exercise and a pleasure. His favorite animal 
is a Kentucky bred saddle horse. It was presented 
him by ex-Governor W. J. Stone, of Missouri, and in 
compliment to its donor, Mr. Bryan has named it 
"Governor.'' 

The figure of W. J. Bryan on horseback is a familiar 
one in the city of Lincoln, a city where horseback 
riding has never been in vogue. Governor is a coal- 
black, high-spirited animal, and prances and 
pirouettes with nervousness at every halt. Mr. Bry- 
an's favorite ride is to his farm, four miles east of the 
city. Here, on a thirty-acre tract, he has for several 



HOME LIFE 175 

jears been making experiments in farming, or rather 
in endeavoring to discover whether he has forgotten 
the lessons instilled into his mind by his agricultural 
experiences in youth. Mr. Bryan Insists that he is 
not a farmer, but an agriculturalist, and defines tlie 
difference tersely in this wise: ''You see, a farmer 
is a man who makes his money in the country, and 
spends it in the town. The agriculturalist makes his 
money in town and spends it in the country." 

Mr. Bryan has no intention of taking up the life 
of a farmer. Ten years ago, in the boom days of 
Lincoln, he purchased a five-acre tract close to the 
suburb of Normal. He had driven out east of the 
city one day, and at the top of a hill stopped to rest 
his horse. As he sat in his carriage the splendid 
panorama of field and house and tree unrolled before 
him. He was enchanted. Then and there he resolved 
to build a permanent home upon that spot some day. 
The original five acres cost him a good round sum, 
but his later purchases, made now and then, have been 
at greatly reduced figures. The buildings upon the 
farm are largely temporary in character. The house 
is a small one of five rooms, and shelters the man who 
does the real work on the place. Mr. Bryan has found 
much pleasure and recreation during the summer at 
the farm. During the planting season and in the 
weeks that followed, he made a visit daily and spent 
several hours "puttering" about, directing things here 
and bearing a hand there himself, at the harder tasks. 
In the rural atmosphere, away from the conventions 
of the city, he threw aside every care and every 



17G WILLIAM JENNINrTS BRYAX 

burden. His ordinary clothing was cast aside for the 
habilaments that distinguish the farmer at v\ ork. Mr. 
Bryan confesses to a wealiness for high- top boots, in 
which his trouser ends can be hidden, — and then to 
work. 

The one singular thing about everything that this 
man does is that he is at all times able to preserve 
his dignity. There is nothing selfconscious about 
that dignity. In the West, that sort is dangerous to 
attempt. Simplicity is the dominant note in his char- 
acter, his manners, his talk, his walk. His amiability 
is inexhaustible, his patience unending. If a delega- 
tion of Democrats passing through Lincoln do not 
have time to go out and see Mr. Bryan, Mr. Bryan 
finds time to ride down to the depot and see them. 
He has, since his nomination, made several speeches 
from horseback, to boisterous but zealous delegations, 
and always with the old charm and effect. 
/^As to his patience, no better witnesses to its endur- 
ing qualities need be asked than the newspaper cor- 
respondents who form a corps of watchful guardians 
upon his footsteps. Many are the questions, some of 
them impertinent, that are asked him, and during a 
campaign, the presence of the press representatives, 
unobtrusive as they are, really destroys whatever 
privacy remained to him. And yet through it all, his 
courtesy is ever gentle, his good nature unfailing, his 
temper always under such control as to seem to be an 
, absent quantity in his make-up. 

Lincoln, the city of his residence, has always been 
dominated by the Republican party, and so great has 



HOME LIFE 177 

been the preponderance of that political organization 
that Mr. Bryan has never been able to carry it in any 
of his campaigns. Mr. Bryan came to Lincoln a 
young man, and entered into a very brisk competition 
with a number of other young lawyers, most of them 
Republicans. None of these have risen above the 
political level of county leaders, nor have they found 
fame or other reward at the bar. The rapid flight of 
Mr. Bryan and his pre-eminence has engendered in 
their breasts a bitterness of partisanship, accentuated 
and multiplied by their personal jealousies, that has 
found its vent in mean and malicious assaults upon 
his political integrity and attempted belittlings of his 
abilities. This influence has in the past over-ridden a 
local pride that would have justified an endorsement 
at least of his Presidential candidacy, and added 
flame to the fires of partisanship that particularly 
distinguishes the city. These two facts form the so- 
lution to a mystery that has seemingly vexed a great 
many good people in America, who do not understand 
the local conditions. Mr. Bryan seems, too, to have 
pitched his tent in the most rabidly Republican sec- 
tion of the city, as evidenced by the elaborate display 
of McKinley pictures in the front windows of the 
houses of his neighbors, who are as lacking in good 
taste as in civic pride. 

None of these elaborate attempts at incivility have 
ever ruflfled his temper, nor have they caused him to 
retaliate with the weapons he so well knows how to 
use. The fact is, he has many warm friends among 
the Republicans of the city. His old law partner has 



ITS WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN 

long been a Republican leader, and is now president 
of the State Senate. This year he has espoused Mr. 
Bryan's cause. 

It has been said that the home of Mr. and Mrs. 
Bryan is a typical one. It is more than a type; it is 
an ideal. The simplicity of the life his family leads, 
the wholesomeness of the atmosphere, the absence of 
affectation, the presence of a democracy that includes 
courtesy, gentleness, amiability, and cordiality invari- 
ably impresses one. The home life of a man is the 
mirror of his character; and in its limpid depths one 
sees the secret springs of thought and reads the heart 
aright. That that of Mr. Bryan reflects with truthful 
fidelity is a fact within the knowledge of all who 
know the man and revere the woman. The words he 
himself used in describing the beautiful home life of a 
friend who had been called across the river apply with 
equal fitness to his own : 

"He found his inspiration at his fireside, and ap- 
proached his ideal of the domestic life. He and his 
faithful wife, who was both his help-mate and com- 
panion, inhabited as tenants in common that sacred 
spot called home, and needed no court to define their 
relative rights and duties. The invisible walls which 
shut in that home and shut out all else had their foun- 
dation upon the earth and their battlements in the 
skies. No force could break them down, no poisoned 
arrows could cross their top, and at the gates thereof 
love and confidence stood ever upon guard." 



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